Tomorrow!

Little known fact about the glacial sediment near Lake Erie in our area. Sometimes, you can see a swath of this sediment in the swash zone of the beach—the waves sort them differently because they are denser than the other sediment. #sunyfredonia #geology #lakeerie #sedimentology #glacialsediment

Our Dunk is nearing completion. It now has a stand! #paleontology #geology #Devonian #sunyfredonia #3dprinting

The water level of lake Erie is at a point where we can reach parts of Point Gratiot that I have never been able to visit. So, I took some students on an impromptu field trip this afternoon to see the Kellwasser event exposed at the Lake Erie Beach. #sunyfredonia #geology #paleontology #devonian

More pictures from measuring stratigraphy with Dr. Hegna's class out at the Sheridan Bay Park. Included is some meta-photography with SUNY Fredonia's Roger Coda (marketing and communications). #geology #stratigraphy #fredonia #lakeerie #sunyfredonia

Another 3d printed skull to guess. It is harder than it looks.

Guess who!

A beautiful day to measure the Hanover Shale. Found a crinoid-filled lens amongst the layers. #Fredonia #geology #stratigraphy

Another way we spent our summer vacation: www.fredonia.edu/news/article... #fredonia #geology

I don't think I am exaggerating when I say this is the fastest brachiopod ever. Introducing the Brachio-Bot. #fredonia #paleontology #3dprinting

The Trilo-bot is now fully operational!

Guess who? Printed at about 1/2 scale.

I bring you the latest advance in lophotrochozoan technology: The Brachio-bot®

New paper out describing the first fossil ovaries and unfertilized eggs in a primitive horseshoe crab. #paleontology #xiphosura #ordovician

So, Tom, how have you been procrastinating the arthropod cuticle preservation paper? Oh, you know . . . #Devonian #dunkleosteus #3dprinting

Proper signage is key in an academic building.

"A successful college education is measured not by what its graduates believe but by what they can conceive." Important piece by Lynn Pasquerella on @aacu.org's Call for Constructive Engagement statement and higher ed leaders' response to the present crisis. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...

New paper out! Open Access! doi.org/10.1017/jpa....

Academic folks: Our departmental page has a 'links' page. Does anyone else get frequent emails from 'teachers' who have a student who has 'found our links useful' and wants us to add links that the student found? 1/2 . . . .

I don't even think a modern car would fit through the renovated doorway of Houghton.

Associate professor Thomas Hegna gave a talk titled: "Teaching Critical Thinking on a Flat Earth." His presentation detailed his use of flat Earth myths, in a general education science class, to help students to think more critically.

At the recent NE-NC GSA conference, Syd Lamberton, a senior at SUNY Fredonia, displayed her poster, titled Looking for Critical Minerals in Carboniferous Clays Beneath Coal Deposits in Pennsylvania: A Multipronged Approach. 1/4 #SUNYFredonia #geology #undergraduateresearch #gsaconnects

Hey it me! Thanks for being excellent hosts @weinersmith.bsky.social and @danielwhiteson.bsky.social! 🧪🦀🦑

The Australasian Palaeontological Memoirs has a new Cambro-Ordovician volume out. Has anyone seen a table of contents? Some pdfs are already on researchgate.net #cambrian #ordovician #trilobites #paleontology #palaeontology

This Friday, Dr. Sarah Sheffield from SUNY Binghamton will give a lecture at SUNY Fredonia, (3pm in room 105 in the Science Center). The title is “Untangling the evolutionary patterns of ancient animals" featuring a group of animals with unusual symmetry. 1/3 #echinoderms #paleontology #scicom

Rachel is grateful for Dr. Hegna’s guidance and is excited to present her findings at the conference. Even though this research may seem small, it has uncovered an entirely new world of discoveries. 4/4

This population of clam shrimp was also isolated from other known groups, suggesting the possibility of additional undiscovered sites containing these creatures. Through her research, Rachel has gained a deeper appreciation for how much there is still to learn from even the smallest organisms. 3/4

In collaboration with Dr. Hegna, Rachel's research uses SEM imaging to study developmental changes in the shrimp, particularly the differences in the labrum structure, which could impact the species' classification. 2/4 #crustacea #branchiopoda #spinicaudata #SUNYFredonia #newyork

Rachel Echevarria, a senior double majoring in environmental science and earth science at SUNY Fredonia, presented a research poster at the GSA conference on a newly discovered population of Cyzicus gynecius (clam shrimp), from near Mud Lake in Cassadaga, NY. 1/4 #undergraduateresearch #fredonia

Jacob Salisbury, a senior at Fredonia High School and future SUNY Fredonia student, is researching a newly identified clam shrimp species through an internship with Dr. Hegna. These fossils from the Jurassic Morrison Formation in Wyoming were found in an unusual green chert matrix. 1/6 #gsaconnects

This past weekend, SUNY Fredonia’s Geo. & Env. Sci. Dept had an amazing time at the Buffalo Geological Society’s 55th Annual Gem, Mineral, & Fossil Show! Multiple students and faculty members represented Fredonia—answering questions and teaching kids about erosion with our stream table. 1/4

She’s also gaining valuable fieldwork skills and hands-on lab experience, all of which will support her future career in environmental science. As for the conference, Bea says she is looking forward to sharing her findings and can’t wait to see what her peers from Fredonia will be presenting! 5/5

These included an amphipod used in water toxicity assessments, and a ctenopod (waterflea), which can indicate the pH level of the water. Bea’s work provides a crucial baseline for monitoring the health of the reservoir and will help ensure the community has access to safe water. 4/5 #cladocera

The SEM allowed Bea to see the intricate details of the zooplankton, including appendages and their segments, hair-like structures called setae, and spikes, which were critical for accurate species identification. Bea identified 9 species across seven crustacean families. 3/5 #biomonitoring

She carefully sorted through the samples under a light microscope, picking out & identifying each individual crustacean member of the zooplankton while removing debris & phytoplankton. Then, she used critical point drying to prepare them for Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) examination. 2/5

Bea Roof, a 4th-year Environmental Sciences major, is ready to present her research on the zooplankton in Fredonia's reservoir at the GSA Conference later this month! To collect her samples, Bea used a plankton net from the shore, gathering over 3,600 individual zooplankton preserved in alcohol. 1/5

The US Geological Survey is sending questionnaires to Dutch scientists here in the Netherlands to check them for ideological purity. They've already noticed their US counterparts getting very paranoid. "The censorship is crazy. It's like talking to Soviet scientists." www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2025/...

In a few weeks, Cecelia Young, a senior Geology major at SUNY Fredonia, will present her research at the Geological Society of America conference. She’ll be sharing her findings on the stratigraphy of the Northeast Shale from Canadaway Creek, a local outcrop near Fredonia! 1/5

Student research is hot in the Department of Geology and Environmental Sciences at SUNY Fredonia. We have a bunch of students presenting at the NE-NC GSA meeting in Erie at the end of the month. #geology #undergraduateresearch #paleontology #newyork www.fredonia.edu/news/article...

Dr. Hegna showed off convergently evolved saberteeth at the Buffalo Museum of Science's Stones and Bones after hours event. Maybe including the giant beaver, Casteroides, stretches the definition a bit too much . . . #scienceoutreach #paleontologyoutreach

The trilobite special issue of the Journal of Paleontology is out (meant to pair with the ill-fated trilobite conference in Cincinnati). www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

I’m a small town boy. After I graduated, I left my hometown to seek my fortune. If I can be an armchair social scientist, I’d like to try to wave my hands to try to explain our current political polarization and offer a solution. Buckle up—my hands are going to be sore from all the waving. 1/8

New writing! For @sciam.bsky.social, I talk about misleading memes. If you understand evolution enough to know this already, great! But memes/youtubes/etc reach folks with no biology background. Science has been twisted to justify bad things, such as eugenics, before. NOT IN CRABS' NAME. 🦀🧪🦑⚒️

Wild “Fossil” Wednesday!- Here is one of the many fossils in the department's collection. Can you guess which prehistoric creature this fossil came from? The answer will be revealed in the next post, check back in to see if you were correct!

Just got out of a meeting about scholarships. We had someone submit a list of scholarships that had gender bias, and we are being compelled to change them. Curiously, the complainant only listed scholarships for women--they completely missed the scholarships specifically for male students. 1/2

Who knows any other examples of trilobites in fiction out there? Ken Gass wrote the campy horror novella "Trilobites!" and Batti Dohm wrote "Stielauge, der Urkrebs: eine Chronik aus Urzeiten unsere Erde." I know there are a couple of kids books as well. #trilobites #paleontology

Just minutes from campus, Dunkirk Beach offers a glimpse into the Devonian era—about 400 million years ago! Geology student Jasper Bateman recently explored Point Gratiot in Dunkirk, searching for fossils of fish bones and woody plants as part of his research on local Devonian history. 1/5

Trust is hard to gain and easy to lose. One of the strengths that the USA had over the last century was trust. Below is an except from review of a grant I was a part of that was submitted for funding to a non-US funding body. The trust is already gone.

This #paleoart shows 3 views of the Devonian brachiopod fossil Paraspirifer bownockeri; one is reconstructed w/ some epifauna and boreholes. These are fun to find; they're an impressive size (for brachiopods). I had an excellent specimen to use as a reference for this painting. #FossilFriday #sciart