My first oil beetle! Encountered today on my lunch break in Falmouth, trundling up the road like she owned it. I moved her to safety and she was kind enough not to oil me. 🪲

No I cannot be on your important panel, sorry. No I cannot review your exciting grant, sorry. No I cannot review your groundbreaking paper, sorry. No I cannot help you with your awesome outreach project, sorry. Because all of this^ is invisible on my uni workload model and therefore worthless. 🤷‍♀️

Day 42. Still raining. ☔️☔️☔️☔️ 😭 www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I know we shouldn’t encourage AI slop by sharing it, but my son’s (lovely) teacher keeps illustrating her messages to parents with these unintentional bangers 😂 Behold, a fun boardgames session… where the possessed blank-eyed children will rise out of the incomprehensible games with unbridled joy!

👏 Heroic effort to extract a H₂ record from ice cores 👏 The samples had to measured in the field immediately after drilling (i.e. fresh out the oven 🥮) to prevent the tiny H₂ molecules from leaking out. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

In between torrential downpours (when will it end?? ☔️) managed to see some lovely blooms for #wildflowerhour today. 13 species in flower, including the first alexanders and three-cornered leek of the year. Lovely clump of snowdrops and dainty violets galore. @wildflowerhour.bsky.social

“These latest attempts at environmental deregulation aim to tilt that balance ever closer to private gain, by fudging the lines and asserting that developer gain is the same thing as public good.” Excellent blog revealing the deceptions of dereg lobbyists. www.wildlifetrusts.org/blog/public-...

And so the dominoes in UK higher education begin to fall. This closure will have a devastating impact on the city - on students, jobs, the wider economy (worth £100m a year), and social mobility for local youngsters. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

I really hope this works - great for the region and UK in general. Also a great advert for how Geology and Geologists can have a really positive impact on shaping our Green Future 🧪⚒️ www.theguardian.com/environment/...

www.bbc.co.uk/weather/arti... Wet, wet, wet.

I can testify that it’s rained almost constantly for the last 10 days or so. Occasional gaps for a few hours before the next downpour 😬 Flooding all over, but at least we have some topography in Cornwall, unlike poor Somerset. (Relieved that we live at the top of the hill when it’s like this!)

This is another really cool trace fossil, but unfortunately there was no label, so I don't know where it's from. There is a trilobite resting spot and at least two starfish trace fossils. #FossilFriday

Today’s selection of esoteric questions from my 4-yo: “Mummy, how long is the sky?” -“Do you mean how high is-“ “No! How looonnnng is it?” “Mummy, when is tomorrow here?” -“Well, I guess it depends…” “Mummy, when will we all be dead?” -“Oh. Uh… well…” 🤷‍♀️

Auschwitz was at the end of a process. We must remember that it did not start from gas chambers. This hatred gradually developed: from ideas, words, stereotypes & prejudice through legal exclusion, dehumanization & escalating violence... to systematic and industrial murder. Auschwitz took time.

Breaking out the replica IODP cores to help with my third-year paleoclimate teaching this term. Showed them the excellent K-Pg section from Blake Nose last week, and onto the Walvis Ridge PETM today. You can borrow them from UKIODP for teaching/ display too! www.ukiodp.org/core-replicas 🧪⚒️

Another day, another storm causing havoc in the SW. The trainline by Dawlish is very picturesque but it’s a real weak point in our connectivity to the rest of the UK. And it’s washed away again 🤦‍♀️ www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Had a great day in the field showing our first year students the joys of Cornish Carboniferous sediments. Lots of beautiful flame structures, laminations, and water escape features in these Westphalian siliciclastics near Bude. (High tides and yellow weather warnings be damned!) ⚒️🧪🌍

Really excited to see this paper out!! Led by @vtcoop.bsky.social we show that if you use cold and warm paleoclimates together, you can reduce uncertainty in Earth's climate sensitivity by quantifying the pattern effect and more precisely constrain future climate change www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Thanks to Ben Lerwill for a lovely article on my #urbangeology walks in today’s @theguardian.com www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/...

You know the aurora is strong tonight because it’s showing well in a place with palm trees! We live in a beautiful world ❤️ #aurora #cornwall 🧪⚒️

The fate of the planet’s coastlines depends on how fast Antarctica’s ice sheets melt. We don’t know what’s coming

Snowdrops in bloom. The countdown to spring is on! 🌱🌷🌼

We warmly welcome the Science Team of IODP³-NSF Expedition 501 to #MARUM and to kick off the onshore research here! Read more about the onshore operation and the expedition here ➡️ www.marum.de/en/Start-OnO... @ecord.bsky.social @bgs.ac.uk @anzic.bsky.social #ECORDScienceOperator #IODP3NSF #Exp501

End of the first week of (my heavy-teaching) term and I already feel a bit… Looking forward to a weekend of ::checks notes:: marking and lecture prep 👍

🚨New paper out with @alexauderset.bsky.social! We show that the Arabian Sea oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) was better oxygenated during the warm Miocene Climate Optimum than today, but its path to full deoxygenation was slow and complex. Link to paper: www.nature.com/articles/s43...

It’s funny how Wikipedia used to seem relatively unreliable, because it was written by regular people instead of encyclopedia experts, and now it seems relatively reliable, because it’s written by regular people instead of glib CliffsNotes robots

Winston Howes lost his wife. He planted thousands of oak trees in a six-acre field Once it was completed he put a seat in the field, overlooking the hill near where she used to live. He didn't tell anyone Photo: SWNS

I saw a pipistrelle bat this evening flying outside my house. In early January! I know it’s been a nice sunny day, but surely it should still be hibernating, even in Cornwall? 🦇 🤔

There were 29,300 student visa applications last month, 17 per cent less than in December 2024 "The Home Office will be pleased but pretty much everyone else will see it as the disaster it is—for university finances and the UK’s soft power," said Nick Hillman, director of @hepi-news.bsky.social

Well that was a wild and woolly night! Not often we get a howling northerly gale in these parts. Trees and fences down all over, areas still without power, and general disarray in Cornwall this morning. #goretti

Published today: Importance of beginning industrial-era climate simulations in the eighteenth century Defining pre-industrial to be 1750, rather than 1850, produces different (simulated) historical climate changes after 1850. Pre-1850 volcanoes & land use matter. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

Climate change isn’t just charts and projections. It’s hundreds of UK plants flowering early in winter, right now, right outside. Once you notice it, you can’t unsee it. A visible signal of climate breakdown. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Meanwhile in Cornwall this Magnolia is in full bloom…in early January 🧐 (God I love the AMOC and hope it doesn’t collapse in my lifetime 🙏)

For the first #fossilfriday of 2026, I present some lovely marine fossils of lower Carboniferous (Visean) age, from the Bowland Shale Fm (formally the Poyllvaaish fm) from the Isle of Man. These are found in some very famous steps in London… anyone know where?

Not long now until #NewYearPlantHunt starts! Everything you need is here: bsbi.org/take-part/ac... Spotter sheets, Top Tips for successful hunting, info about group hunts, guidance on taking photos for #WildFlowerID, links to the #BSBIRecordingApp for uploading your finds & info on how to get help.

The conservation ledger: What we lost and what we gained in 2025

One of my last acts of the year was visiting Stonehenge today. Timeless hunks of rock looming out of the fog, silent, uncaring and slowly being dissolved by lichen. Reminding us that nothing lasts forever, but you can make a big impact while you’re here. Here’s to 2026 and all it may bring 🥂

Tis the season for magical gifts 🎁 And my gift this week is my 4-yo discovering the phrase: “Why should I?” apparently to be deployed in response to every single request from me. Yuletide joy! 🤦‍♀️

The vandals are after NCAR now. 😭

Thoroughly enjoyed the UKIODP conference in Southampton yesterday. I took zero photos so you’ll just have to imagine 80 or deep-sea drilling nerds drinking tea, listening to talks, chatting at posters, and hatching cunning plans over curry and beverages… 🤓☺️🧪⚒️🌍

10k fewer attendees at AGU this year! That’s wild but not unexpected. Lots of Europeans steering clear of the USA at the moment, plus likely issues with travel grant funding for American geoscientists. But still, yikes.

20mph zones in residential areas save lives and prevent serious injuries. Full stop. What else matters? I don’t care if 20mph “feels too slow” or “it’s hard to stick to” or “everyone breaks the limit any way”. Grow up. (God, the comments under this article 🤦‍♀️) www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

'As scientists, we are increasingly being asked to tell the public the truth about the crises we face in simple and direct terms. The truth is that we are shocked by the ferocity of the extreme weather events in 2023. We are afraid of the uncharted territory that we have now entered.' 1/2

Well well well…

“A Santas Against Sewage swimming event had to be called off due to sewage in the water prompting an onshore protest over pollution instead.” 🤦‍♀️ www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... So depressing to have to check www.sewagemap.co.uk every time before swimming. Cornwall map this week after 🌧️ is 🤮

"It is therefore vital that #climate change projections of European hydroclimate for the (far) future consider the possibility of #AMOC changes, & the exacerbated effects this would have on projected regional hydrological changes & consequences for ecosystems & society"