Years ago, we built the Hades Underworld Explorer, where with a simple drag and drop, users can make their own cross sections of the Earth's mantle. The Hades Underworld Explorer now has its own web address! Have a peak of your own into the underworld! www.hades-underworld-explorer.org

Yes, hello, is that God? Yeah, hi. I have a complaint. You gave me this brain that’s designed for finding berries and avoiding lions and now people are ‘just circling back’ to see if we can ‘move the needle’ on ‘key initiatives’? NONE of those things are berries.

😂😂😂😂

I have now reached the scientific level that I hoped to reach when I was a young postdoc. I imagined it’d be glorious. But instead I’ve learned that all scientific achievement is accomplished amidst an endless stream of criticism and rejection, so that you’re always working far below capacity.

Come join us at Utrecht Eartn Sciences! www.uu.nl/en/organisat...

Ik ben genomineerd voor de vrouw in de media awards 2025. Tot 13 februari mag er gestemd worden: vidm.nl/degenomineer... Van collegezalen tot festivaltenten, musea tot het 8-uur journaal, Zappelin tot RTL, van jong tot oud - het liefst maak ik iedereen enthousiast over wetenschap! 📸 Ilva Stoelwinder

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New paper alert! For this interested in subduction initiation processes: @alisstostrome.bsky.social shows that cooling of a young subduction interface may provide the mechanisms for the ill-understood catastrophic way in which subduction zones transition from induced to self-sustained. #geology

Paleolatitude.org 3.0 is online! At what latitude was your backyard in the time of the dinosaurs? The answer is a simple mouse click away, and now also if your backyard lies one of the world's big mountain ranges!

In the last decade, my team and I have been working on reconstructions of the orogenic belts of the Tethys. This is the final one, among many other things showing that the back-arc basins of Iran closed by extrusion of Afghanistan from western Tibet in the Cretaceous to Eocene! @uugeo.bsky.social

Because of heavy snow, live lectures are cancelled today, and I am once again looking at a screen with 25 initials and a few faces to lecture. Back in Covid-mode, and it's truly horrible. I'm glad that next monday, I can lecture normally again.

2025 was a year of building up. Looking forward to harvesting in ‘26! Happy new year all!

After a long process that took almost 13 years, I'm very happy that we submitted the first paper of Kalijn Peters' work on the Pinarbasi ophiolite of Turkey! There's more coming up, but this one's submitted, to Tektonika. Preprint below! @uugeo.bsky.social essopenarchive.org/doi/full/10....

This is a spectacular finding in the recent paper of Wagenaar et al in JGR: in a minimum-continent-motion reference frame, the plumes of the Indo-Atlantic hotspots move parallel to the edges of the LLSVP, in a counterclockwise fashion. A signal of lowermost mantle flow?

I am particularly proud of this paper by MSc student Steffi Wagenaar, in which we develop a scheme to make reconstructions of mantle convection. Hardcore geodynamics from the hand of a really impressive MSc student. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

New preprint! We'll see what the Nature editor says, but we certainly enjoyed figuring this one out! @uugeo.bsky.social www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-8...

Major Earthquake on the Japan subduction zone, 7.6. Tsunami warning for 3m high wave. Fingers crossed that the damage is minimal.

I spent my day reviewing proposals. Out of the 12, only 2 proposed to collect new data. 10 integrated, AI'd, modeled, or did some other form of integration and data mining. That sells, it makes it possible to address big-picture issues.

Paleomagnetism.org 2.6 is out! 👇 New tools & tests & data formats are added! In a future upgrade, we will develop a data format converter that will convert all paleomagnetic data formats to the format of your liking. Time to make Paleomagnetism #FAIR! @uugeo.bsky.social

I had a great time talking to Nick Zentner about our latest ideas on plate tectonic reconstructions based on Caribbean and Californian geology. Check out our conversation on his Youtube channel! @uugeo.bsky.social #geology #geoscience #earthscience www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFKN...

Spectacular - and scary - eruption in Ethiopia. This is a volcano in the famous Afar Triangle, where the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, and the African Rift meet in a triple point, where the Arabian, African, and Somalian plates are pulled apart. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Zie Nederland in paleogeografische context! In dit clipje uit het #UtrechtPaleogeographyModel heb ik Nederland gehighlight in groen. Je ziet hoe ons landje door de verschillende breedtegraden beweegt sinds we midden in Pangea rond de evenaar zaten, 320 miljoen jaar geleden. youtu.be/8prPVWdf_oY

Terrific

This is the reconstruction that comes with our new Nature Communications Earth & Environment paper on Caribbean biogeography. With Leny Montheil, Mélody Philippon, Franck Audemard, Lydian Boschman, Richard Wessels, Sylvie Leroy et al #UtrechtPaleogeographicModel www.nature.com/articles/s43...

Finally, it's out! For decades Caribbean geologists and biologists were puzzled how South American land plants and animals could have traveled to Cuba. Our new reconstruction of rising, moving, and breaking land bridges now shows how! www-nature-com.utrechtuniversity.idm.oclc.org/articles/s43...

Aardbeving in Groningen van 3.4, als gevolg van de gaswinning uit het verleden. Doordat de druk in het reservoir verlaagd is, klinkt het gesteente daaromheen in, en worden oude breuken gereactiveerd. De bevingen zijn op zich niet zo groot, maar onze infrastructuur daar is niet gebouwd op bevingen.

Utrecht Paleogeography model in prep! We're integrating our detailed reconstructions of orogenic belts and lost subducted plates into one plate tectonic and paleogeography model. We'll launch the updated Paleolatitude.org soon, and more tools for geodynamic, paleoclimate, and paleobiology studies!

Man, wat een opluchting. @d66.nl

Just to give you an idea how young our field is and now far we’ve come!

Read the story of everyone’s favorite rock type, Piloshite!

🆕 🔔 New paper: "Is there a Cretan Supradetachment Basin? Insights From Detailed Mapping on Northwestern Crete (Greece)" by W. Zachariasse and @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social ⚒️ tektonika.online/index.php/ho...

Made this figure for a book chapter on tectonic reconstructions that I'm writing with Jonny Wu, using a fantastic field photograph of Joao C. Duarte, of the Telheiro Beach section in SW Portugal. The formation, heydays, and breakup of the supercontinent Pangea caught in one photograph.

We just published a paper about NW Crete, where my career started with my MSc fieldwork in 1998, and where Jan Willem Zachariasse spent the last decade making a new geological map. Published in the Diamond Open Access journal Tektonika! tektonika.online/index.php/ho...

📆 MASTER'S OPEN DAY | 8 October 2025 Are you looking for a Master's in Earth Science? We offers 4 different Masters to choose from. Join our upcoming Online Master's Open Day on the 8th of October to learn more about your options at Utrecht University. Sign up here ➡️ www.uu.nl/en/node/1189...

In Brussels, getting ready for our ERC Synergy grant interview! Bring it on! With Arwen Deuss, Janne Koornneef and Yamirka Rojas-Agramonte

And the prize for best title of the year goes to Fabrice Cordey 😂😂

Ik heb Maarten Keulemans vanmorgen van wat uitleg voorzien voor zijn artikel over de Afghanistanbevingen van vanmorgen: www.volkskrant.nl/wetenschap/w...

The 6.0 quake in Afghanistan of this morning occurred on a shallow thrust fault, within the pile of tectonic fragments that is the Pamir-Hindu Kush mountain belt. Basically, the western part of the Tibetan Plateau 1/n earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...

So, some background for the start of @lavuelta.bsky.social…and oddly, the best way to do that is by telling you about the geology of Milano-San Remo 😃. The first days will be about the Po Plain and the Ligurian Alps! Enjoy! www.geo-sports.org/2024/geology...

Used AI again to develop a piece I wrote on piano into a song. Quite like it. suno.com/song/4d39640...

Ok, so I wasn’t a fan of AI, in many cases, it kills creativity and originality. But I’ll admit I like the applications to music. Since my teenage years, I’ve written songs, and recorded them with some band (e.g. Sans Gene). But I’m not a great singer, and play mediocre guitar and piano.

Two years ago, brilliant Utrecht University PhD student Gerrit Müller organized a workshop about the role of weathering in the CO2 cycle. He invited scientists from all over to debate the different parts of the cycle, and merged it jnto this review paper, published today in Nature Geoscience!

The Classica San Sebastian will race along the Basque North Coast! @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social made some clips about the beautiful geological goodies of the Basque Country! The trace fossils in the Black Flysch for instance! youtu.be/BWGPKmuo6Zw?...

The Tour de France Femmes is climbing the Alps! Did you know the Alps are made of cheese? @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social explains in this clip! youtu.be/7wkFVQaMdo8?...

The TdFF races through the Devonian of the northern Massif Central today. Marj and @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social imagined racing a Tour stage back then, 400 million years ago, in this ‘23 clip! 🐟 youtu.be/VFXoz3pSPec?...

Today's M8.8 (orange circle) and the 1952 M9.0 epicentral locations, separated by only 73 years. I wouldn't have thought that possible! Average recurrence intervals don't tell the full story. ⚒️

8.8 earthquake at the Kamchatka subduction zone caused a tsunami in Russia that is about to hit Hawai’i too. This is a quake that is close to the magnitude of the devastating Japan quake of 15 years ago. And the same tectonic cause. Doesn’t look good… earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...

Science Magazine has retracted this paper of Felisa Wolfe-Simon, and that is beyond rediculous, and a very dangerous move in this time of political interference in science. arstechnica.com/science/2025...

Racing through the Jura today! In ‘23 and ‘24 we made two clips about its geological wonders! Like dinosaur footprints! youtu.be/N7hmLLasZrk?...

And why is the Jura such a strange, croissant-shaped mountain belt in front of the Alps? Marj will tell you! youtu.be/CMeyN5AMGAU?...