My Field Geology class’s field season is over, so here they are mapping out major geologic events and their respective field sites on a 100-foot geologic time scale. Putting things into context!

Tree space and a new ray-finned fish out today! We delve into how methods to visualize the forest of phylogenetic tree space can be used to address the rogue taxon problem. Shout out to my co-authors and advisors Michelle Stocker and Michael Gottfried. ssbbulletin.org/index.php/bs...

Support @stcloudstate.bsky.social, support your community. We’ve created the #Husky Community Engagement Fund to strengthen #SCSU’s connection with St. Cloud and the surrounding region. Learn more about #OurSCSU effort and make your impact today at scsu.mn/hcefund

A great day of talks on the second day of the MN Association of Floodplain Managers conference. Excited to bring some new ideas to the classroom. @stcloudstate.bsky.social

A great first day at the Minnesota Association of Floodplain Managers conference. Some of our @stcloudstate.bsky.social students were able to visit important sites along the Mississippi River as part of the conference field trip. #mnafpm

My latest for @nytimes.com! For 40 years, paleontologists have grappled over whether a small tyrannosaur — named Nanotyrannus — was its own animal, or simply a teenage T.rex. The debate has been ... contentious. Which is why it's so fun to finally be able to say this: Folks? Nanotyrannus is real.

SVP President @stuartsumida.bsky.social speaks to Open Access Government about the importance of vertebrate paleontology and science in the United States. www.openaccessgovernment.org/the-importan...

A phenomenal paleontologist and a pleasure to talk to at SVP conferences. Mark will be missed.

Excavated from the Pisces Point locality of Scollard Formation in Alberta, Canada, ~67 million years old, Acronichthys maccognoi, newly reported in @science.org, was recovered from ancient water body that flipped seasonally between fast-flowing channels and quiet, still pools.

It’s time for my biennial reminder that I love where I live and that I can access this any time I want, and that I need to vist more often. #fieldgeology #quarrypark

The student of a friend would like input on the public perception of paleontologists (from non-paleontologists) for an assign. So help a student out, would you please? :) docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

“It actually doesn’t take much to be considered a difficult woman. That’s why there are so many of us.” ― Jane Goodall 💙 RIP to a real one. My childhood hero

Visiting an active quarry is absolutely fascinating! I think the Field Geology class enjoyed it as well. Thank you to Martin Marietta St. Cloud Quarry @martinmariettam.bsky.social for the opportunity!

The 2026 MESTA conference program is coming together! With keynote speaker Danielle Heffernan, sessions on hydrology, astronomy, & geology, and networking opportunities for Minnesota Earth Science teachers, it's sure to be a great time. Register now at www.mnearthscience.org

Team SCSU fishes!! today.stcloudstate.edu/2025/09/18/s...

Look again! This isn't a close up of a planet. Definitely not Jupiter. This is a thin section of shale under a microscope (4x magnification). 😊 #STEMphotography #SciArt

Come visit me today at the Science Museum of Minnesota’s annual DinoFest! I’ll have fish fossils and Donnie the Dimetrodon with me and ready to talk about all things fossiliferous! Smm.org

TSUNAMI WARNING ISSUED FOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA From Cape Mendocino to the Oregon border GET AWAY FROM THE COASTLINE! #aurefreepress #News #press #headline #earthquake #Breaking #breakingnews

The Dark Side of Being a Female Shark Researcher | Scientific American

Speaking of Brian Engh, I interviewed him years ago for PLOS Blogs, and have archived those posts on my personal website. They might be a bit outdated (I just updated them a bit) but check them out and give him some deserved love: sarahzgibson.com/2017/04/12/p...

The research lab space continues to get upgraded. Finally got my Brian Engh art prints hung up! Depictions of the Kayenta Fm (Sarah’s Fish Bed), Aquilops, and the Chinle Fm (featuring several fishies I described!). Brian’s a great paleoartist, check out his work: www.livingrelicproductions.com

A revision of the Late Jurassic fish Aphnelepis australis from the Talbragar Fossil Fish Bed of New South Wales, Australia www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Hemicalypterus no longer hold the record for oldest herbivorous fish, and that's okay Early ray‐finned herbivores: the dental system of Eurynotoidiidae (Actinopterygii; middle–late Permian, European Russia) and implications for palaeobiology and palaeoecology onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

A new species of the ray-finned fish Saurichthys (Actinopterygii) from the Dockum Group of Texas (Upper Triassic, Norian) highlights the late appearance of elongate jaws in neopterygians www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1...

A new Triassic metoposaur from the Popo Age Fm, Wyoming dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Fascinating! Ice cleaving and a 200 ft tower rises from the water.

Super excited that our new paper is out today in @pnas.org. Title: Lateral jaw motion in fish expands the functional repertoire of vertebrates and underpins the success of a dominant herbivore lineage. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Congrats to my grad student Spencer Ott @beardedvultur3.bsky.social for winning the #JMIH25 Storer Best Student Poster in Ichthyology! So proud!!! :)

I want to give a special shoutout to those that donated to or advocated for childcare at the #JMIH25 meeting. Because childcare is available on site, I have been able to attend the meeting and present my research. It is a lifeline for early career researchers, particularly women!

Proud of my students Aimee and Spencer for presenting their fossil fish work at #JMIH2025 #JMIH25 in St. Paul.

Happy #FossilFriday from my lab space! Still working on the semionotiform death blocks, and I have finally set up my new scope!

Getting ready for #JMIH2025, but getting distracted by Diabloceratops.

A glacier partially collapsed in Switzerland, burying the village of Blatten in a huge landslide of ice, rock, and mud after residents had been evacuated. Scientists called the collapse of the glacier “unprecedented” in the Swiss Alps.

New Utah 🐪 paper “A new, geologically old record of the extinct camelid Camelops in Utah” www.tandfonline.com/eprint/3IB9T...

While doing research for my Geology of the National Parks course, I came across this article by @tuttran.bsky.social on paleontology in Bryce Canyon National Park, which will always be my favorite NP. Spent so much time there with my family. www.nps.gov/articles/000...

A big congratulations to my student Aimee Hruska, who graduated today with her M.S. in Biology from St. Cloud State. Hoping to get her research published this year!

Congratulations to Earth Science major Eryn Bloom for receiving the Dennis Thayer Award, which is the highest Excellence in Leadership Award given at St. Cloud State University! Eryn also leads our student club (the Earth and Environmental Alliance) and is double-majoring in Hydrology.

A new job posting as a Paleobotany Research Assistant at the Perot!

Happy #FossilFriday! These are specimens of Receptaculites from the Ordovician Tyndall Limestone of Manitoba. These common Paleozoic marine fossils may look like coral, but it is still unclear what they are, most likely related to algae. From the SCSU Rock, Mineral, and Fossil Collection.

Earth Science undergrad Olivia Barnes presenting her progress on reorganizing the SCSU Mineral Collection at the Student Research Colloquium.

SCSU Biology graduate student Aimee Hruska is presenting our work on Coccolepis jaws at the Student Research Colloquium!

My hydrology class visited the St. Cloud Hydroelectric Dam on the Mississippi River this week, always an impressive facility.

Howdy folks! The semester caught up with me, and I neglected my presence here. I have been spending free time cleaning up lab spaces and making progress! We have all of the SCSU Mineralogy collection in the same space now, ready to be organized and catalogued.

This week I stumbled across some great plant impressions in a ripple laminated sandstone unit in the lower Chinle at @PetrifiedNPS #FossilFriday

The WAVP meeting is one of the best paleo meetings I’ve attended!

Have a good weekend everyone, don’t forget to eat your fruits and veggies.

For #FossilFriday, I am spending time photographing this block, and once I got it in the right light, the surface really pops out with hundreds of tiny little Triassic fishes.

#FossilFriday A small herd of the oreodont Miniochoerus, nestling in death. At the Tate Geological Museum in Wyoming.

It’s exciting when a lab space becomes all your own but part of that is cleaning up the messes left behind, and not knowing how long it’s been that way.