Today's haul. @[email protected] @rapiduplift.bsky.social @maitrey.bsky.social @mrajshekhar.bsky.social

Wow. I did not know that Alfred Russell Wallace (co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection) wrote a book in 1904 about the biological potential for life on other planets, and I've just found this extraordinary paragraph setting out the insanity of atmospheric pollution [1/3]. In 1904!

The one on Sir John Mortimer remains my favorite. @dlknowles.bsky.social www.economist.com/obituary/200...

New Blog Post- There is a large difference between stratigraphic thickness and elevation in the Deccan Volcanic Province. A quick look at lava stratigraphy and regional structure. @peterbrannen.bsky.social rapiduplift.substack.com/p/deccan-tra...

Latest Newsletter- The total thickness of the Deccan Volcanics is more than 10,000 feet. But the highest elevation is 5400 feet. Why? A quick look at lava stratigraphy and regional structure. rapiduplift.substack.com/p/deccan-tra...

"Oil companies don’t care about the first 40 meters of the core" But archaeologists do. Sumerian civilization may have been jump-started by the rise and fall of tides. www.science.org/content/arti...

I was recently interviewed by @drlauraguertin.bsky.social as part of her 'Tales from the Deep' series focused on the people involved in scientific ocean drilling ⚒️🧪⛴️ –– lots of great stories from many others there to check out archive.storycorps.org/interviews/i...

Such hyperbole reg enhanced rock weathering for CO2 removal. Weathering of entire planet's surface rock removes < 1 Gt of CO2/yr But < 1% of Deccan Basalt, which is a tiny fraction of Earth's surface, will remove all human generated CO2 (40 Gt yr! ) 🙄 Times of India, Oct 19.

4,300 cubic kilometres! The scale of this ancient submarine landslide is hard to comprehend. Imagine a pile of rock 1 km wide and 1 km tall, extending from New York to Los Angeles. That would be a little smaller than this landslide.

Oxidised (left) and unoxidised 3.2 billion year old banded iron formation. These samples are from drill core and were only a couple of meters apart. #geology #paleontology

Also, eukaryotes evolved during the Proterozoic. How can that be boring?

The Geology of Mumbai- Megapolis Mumbai is firmly situated within the Deccan Volcanic Province. Yet, it has a distinctive geology due to differences in lava composition and tectonic setting. Add to that is a coastline shaped by Holocene sea level changes. rapiduplift.substack.com/p/the-geolog...

The state of education in India: Government-run schools are underfunded, lack infrastructure and good teachers. Private schools are now doing this 👇🏾 scroll.in/article/1087...

You heard it straight from Kennedy himself: Gold Standard Science is actually just data fabrication.

Our new #OpenAccess paper 'Sediment-stressed reefs over the past 420 Myr', led by Tanja Unger, has been published in The Depositional Record Understanding natural and anthropogenic sediment influx to reef systems is critical to planning protection strategies onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Also added this book to the wishlist, given how educational Siddharth Kara's Cobalt Red was. www.theariofrancos.com/extraction

Absolutely! I use these big ones as door stoppers. #Cretaceous #Ammonoidea

A complete flip of the usual pattern we see in these updates - China's and India's emissions fell, and EU and US emissions increased..... ember-energy.org/latest-insig... @ember-energy.org

A frond of Phlebopteris, a 230 million year old fern from the Late Triassic Chinle Formation, New Mexico/Arizona. #FossilFriday #FernFriday ⚒🌏🌱🧪🔬🌿

Sorghum really is a beautiful plant. Grain color and nutrient content are controlled by diverse gene networks.

🚨New work🚨 led by Ph.D. student Dipesh Chuphal (IIT Gandhinagar), shows that the recent drying of the Ganga River basin is unprecedented in 1,300 years—more severe than historical famines. This ~multidecadal drying appears forced, but many models do not capture it. ☔️ 🌧️ www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

What in the world is up with these wild, incised meanders? They have about about 75 m relief with the surrounding terrace. Iran might have the coolest geology on the planet. 28°06'02"N 59°59'17"E #geology #geomorphology 🪨🧪⚒️

Paper- Terminal Cretaceous paleoclimate variability from the famous Mottled Nodular Beds of the Infra Trappean Lameta Formation. These are a stack of calcrete occurring below the Deccan Volcanics in Central India. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

It's never occurred to me that it IS an assumption. This is the most astonishing start to a paper I've read in years: "Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species."

Paper- Leaving no zircon unturned: quantifying the impact of handpicking sharply faceted detrital zircon on maximum depositional age analysis. @clasticdetritus.bsky.social , maybe something for your sed course. pubs.geoscienceworld.org/sepm/jsedres...

New paper out in Geology! Cheilostome bryozoans evolved aragonite skeletons dozens of times during the transition from calcite to aragonite seas, in contrast to other marine calcifiers. Fossil occurrence data corroborate the story and help nail down the timeline. doi.org/10.1130/G537...

Possible coccoid microfossils from a 2.85 billion year old Banded Iron Formation, Central India.

From things I've seen recently, I think many people would benefit from reading this. It's short, and it's free. 👉 rdcu.be/dbFbB

I've been asked a few times over the last few days what I think the chances are that the "leopard spots and poppy seeds" on Mars will turn out to be actual evidence of life. People are naturally skeptical given the history of possible signs of life on other planets. Strap in: long thread ahead...

I think they copied it from my thin section. #Ordovician

Ship’s floor (oak) reused as lintel. Removed during construction work from Cambrian Place Swansea. Dendro dated to spring summer 1778 and sourced from a locally grown Welsh 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 tree! #dendrochronology #wales #archaeology

⚒️ “organic-carbon-bearing mudstones in the Bright Angel formation contain submillimetre-scale nodules and millimetre-scale reaction fronts enriched in ferrous iron phosphate and sulfide minerals, likely vivianite and greigite...” They’ve possibly found my paleomagnetic mineral nemesis on Mars?!!

Our paper (led by Joel Hurowitz and with a large team of Mars 2020 scientists) describing potential signatures of past life on Mars was just published: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Medial moraines where glaciers merge. Greater Himalaya, captured on a recent Delhi -Leh (Ladakh) flight. Pic- Sudheer Palsane.

Paper- Exceptionally preserved ovaries in an ancient (Ordovician) horseshoe crab. pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/...

About 1/3rd of the way thorough Forbes & Mahon's book. Knew Faraday was a genius, but the book is making me appreciate him even more. Oh, the book is just brilliant.

For this #FossilFriday the beautiful Gigantoconia princeps (Stoppani, 1860) with color preservation, from the Ladinian Esino Formation in Italy. ⚒️

The drift in tectonics, climate, and distribution of niches can significantly alter our view on the evolution if only use neontological data. That's why this study of primate origins is so awesome: the modern distribution gives little in understanding doi.org/10.1073/pnas... 🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio #EvoBio

Spectacular strata and landscapes of the Tethyan Himalaya captured from a Delhi Leh flight last week. Pics- Sudheer Palsane.

Some plant fossils, like this piece of Triassic wood, retain some organic matter of their cell walls 🌿⛏️ With a little bit of chemistry we can remove minerals & transfer the organic matter on a piece of cellulose acetate that can be observed under the microscope 🧪Happy #FossilFriday! #paleobotany

I stand corrected. Thanks to @rishpardikar.bsky.social There was local reporting about this before Rajshekhar's piece. arunachaltimes.in/index.php/20...

M Rajshekar spent close to a year chasing this story and reporting on it. No media house in India touched it, and only @himalmag.bsky.social had the guts to publish it. They don't even get a mention by The Guardian. 🤬 www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

New Blog Post- The Easterly Tilt of the Deccan Plateau. What is the reason for the pronounced easterly drainage of Peninsular India. When did it originate? A story of geological evolution from Gondwanaland to recent times. rapiduplift.substack.com/p/rapid-upli...

Israel is carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life. Read more:

Beautifully done! My more humble effort at tracking the retreat of the Panchachuli Glacier in the Kumaon Himalaya, India. rapiduplift.substack.com/p/rapid-upli...

To everyone analysing rain/ GLOF-related disasters in the Indian Himalaya: do consider including India's ill-designed development works, especially large projects like roadways that involve unscientific slope-cutting & mega dams & also tourism practices. There is more to this story that just climate

Also, the block is upside down.

The Republican's compassion for children knows no bounds. (No lower bounds, that is.)

What Netanyahu calls "opportunity to leave" amid broader offensive military operations is, in legal parlance, ethnic cleansing. timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/middle...

#MolluscMonday Gastropod in a stone wall at Saint-Macaire, Gironde, France. Probably Oligocene or Miocene. About 3 cm across, to my untrained eyes it resembles a pleurotomariid but I would appreciate an expert opinion.