Happy Halloween! This piece isn't quite done, but it fit the spooky vibes of the season so I'm posting the WIP.

Ocean acidity has increased by ~30% over pre-Industrial levels due to the uptake of anthropogenic CO2. Pteropods, “sea butterflies,” are planktonic snails that are sensitive to these changes. Scientists have found that their shells are getting thinner & are dissolving, especially at high latitudes.

Nanotyrannus is cool and all, but what if there was a brand new book written with, and illustrated by, @markwitton.bsky.social on Spinosaurus? Wouldn't that be really cool? Listen to use talk about it here before it comes out in less than a week! terriblelizards.libsyn.com/s11e10-spino...

A #Halloween #FossilFriday! Here’s a 🧠 brain! Sorta… this is an endocast, where sediment packed into a skull while there was still some soft tissue replacing and molding and casting where the brain was. This particular one is Miocene from Kyrgyzstan and likely horse. Found by @ashpoust.bsky.social

Power outage at work, time to post baby tapirs!

Read the whole thread, but: this! Just because a new well-done paper has come out with a similar finding to previous very bad science does not actually give validity to previous poor science.

HORNY SPONGES

Anyone else might want to contribute work to fundraise for PRI? If someone is willing to coordinate and run the auction, i will certainly spread the call to all my #sciart friends 🥰

My whiteboard drawing seems to have modified. I personally think it’s a great improvement. I want only really derpy sauropod reconstructions from now on!

An example for my historical geology class today!

Let me attempt to articulate something. As a former participant in the "teenage nerds talk about dinosaurs online" scene, I think some of us who follow paleontology as adults or do dinosaur stuff professionally care too much about the specifics of what's being discussed there. (cont'd)

The Paleontological Research Institution in Ithaca, NY, has been in financial trouble for a while. I'm biased because I currently have my life-size giant snail and clam on display, but they're a bunch of great people doing great work. Read how you can help here: www.priweb.org/mortgage-cam...

302 of #365Minerals 🧪⚒️ Smoky Quartz: - A grey to black variety of quartz - Its colour is due to a combination of Al3+ replacing Si in the crystal lattice and gamma irradiation - Its colour fades when exposed to UV light and heat - Forms in igneous rocks #minerals

Loosing the PRI would devastate US science. Any level donation, spreading the word helps. #FossilFriday #SaveScience priweb.donorsupport.co/page/FUNWALK...

Yall want to see a box of crap for #FossilFriday? Of course you do!

Oh hey look at that. My piece Portrait of a Human is featured in @knowablemag.bsky.social #sciart

When you forget your regular crafting I guess you just have to make a Permian synapsid during faculty meetings?

Pahoehoe

Throwback Thursday! Grey Seal in Chatham MA 09/19 #seal #seals #GreySeal #mammals #MarineLife #NaturePhotography #WildlifePhotography #photography #wildlife #nature #BlueskyArtShow #Blueskyphotographers #PhotographersUnited #Chatham #CapeCod #ThrowbackThursday 🦭🌿

Although classified as carnivores, wolves may sometimes follow an omnivorous diet. They can eat meat, eggs and even fruit! This time of year, pumpkins are a special treat for our ambassador wolves.🎃 #wolffact

Another 3.2 billon year old mat section, this time less weathered and wetted to make the mats more visible. #geology #Paleontology

I actually absolutely love side track questions in my intro classes (because they all relate to geology!) but this may be the first time I’ve (or anyone else) combined Three Mile Island nuclear accident and tuataras in the same lecture! 😅🤣 (Images from Brittanica and Wikipedia)

Hip Hip Hooray! Have a nice 120th nameday old chap.

Day154 of photoshopping @lastweektonight.com's John Oliver with fossils in the hopes that he saves the Paleontological Research Institution Don't worry John(H. sapiens) those aren't sandworms, they are just bryozoans (PRI108377). Please make the #JohnOliverCoprolitasticShed a reality and #savePRI 🧪

Tyrannosaurus rex was named 120 years ago today on 4th October, 1905. I would do things a little differently now, but this drawing is from 2020.

You know I wasn’t the only one having a rough Friday when there was a pair of pants lying on the floor in the hallway…

Switched out the display case for *spooky season* at SWOCC!

Happy Ctenophore Day! 🐙🦑🧪

Happy Ctenophore Day! These glowing ocean drifters look like jellyfish but aren’t! They’re comb jellies, shimmering creatures that light up the sea with rows of beating cilia 💙🌈 Which species can you identify? 👀 Most are raised in @pawelburkhardt.bsky.social lab #CtenophoreDay #CombJelly #Ctenophore

"After nearly 40 years, the Arctic Research Consortium of the United States, or ARCUS, will close September 30." "The Arctic Research Consortium of the United States funded programs that aided Indigenous communities and tracked melting sea ice, among dozens of initiatives."

Come on tugtupite!!!!! 🤞🍀🧧

#MinCup25 ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology 🔭🪐

Today marks the first day in public media’s history without federal funding. And we’re not going anywhere. Listeners like you keep our mission alive. Protect one of the last places where America comes together to hear itself. Stand with us today. Donate at this link: n.pr/46wamAj

Jane Goodall, ethologist and conservationist, has died. She was 91

Had three meetings today, for three different groups working on different projects, and in the end all three just became topics about dealing with stress right now. So I'm going back to my stress physiology toolbox to try to keep myself functioning at the moment. Stay as well as you can, my dears.

Today I learned that these are called “Scoopula” and that like Kleenex or bandaids that’s actually a brand name. So unless it was made by Thermo Fisher Scientific it’s just sparkling pooper scooper.

Have you ever stood on an ancient seafloor bed? This is the banded iron formation (BIF) of Hamersley Range, Australia. Go big #hematite ! Vote: www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3... #MinCup25 ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology 🔭🪐

The Defense Department has disbanded a non-partisan committee that for decades has advised on the recruitment, retention, and treatment of servicewomen — including women’s full integration into combat roles. The Trump administration isn’t up to the job in supporting women in our armed forces.

Botryoidal #hematite! Close the gap, make the #BloodRockFinal happen. #MinCup25 📸https://www.geologyin.com/2024/01/hematite-properties-uses-meaning.html

C'mon, hematite! #MinCup25 www.mindat.org/photo-46723....

Unfortunately ridiculously busy IRL right now, but just found time for this very important message. #VoteHematite!

Eastern chipmunk on watch #mammals

I’m voting hematite! Hematite is cool not just because it’s got a high Curie Point, holding on to magnetic orientation until a high temperature and is therefore very useful for paleomagnetism studies, but also its red streak earned it the cool nickname of “bloodstone”!

Back up last minute field trip at least had *gorgeous* weather, cool rocks, and a great museum!

Absolutely nobody asked for this but I reformatted my animal yeetability thread into printable poster & zine files. Introducing, the "Pocket Guide to Responsible & Sustainable Animal YEETING" featuring a revamped rating system. Download links below.

Big win for the California coastal commission and public access to the coast. www.ksbw.com/article/cour...

Frontiers | “Nursery bays and hidden rays”: First insights into long-term monitoring of Bull Rays (Aetomylaeus bovinus) within the Maltese Archipelago

Under an hour to get my #FossilFriday post up on Friday… I present: probably fossil ostrich shell from Kyrgyzstan????

Nothing like a wildfire rapidly expanding right next to you field trip route 😬 Sooooooo I’ll be an alternative different route only half made up on the fly tomorrow!

Our paper by student Jia-le Mou, former student Jackson Borchardt and myself, Calibrating olivine Forsterite content as a measure of melting degree, is out. A simple and general calibration of how forsterite content varies with melting degree www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...