iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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Mika McKinnon @mikamckinnon.bsky.social · 17/05/2025

It’s going to be time to dust off @mineralcup.bsky.social soon, start soliciting nominations and prep the backend for voting. It seems like such a silly and small thing to do while fear is so heavy. But joy is resistance.

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Dr. Wendy Bohon @drwendyrocks.bsky.social · 11/04/2025

This is absolutely brutal. A +50% proposed cut to NASA Earth Sciences would decimate essential programs and tools needed to understand and monitor Earths ice, climate, hazards, oceans, forests and more. Crushing. arstechnica.com/space/2025/0...

arstechnica.com

Trump White House budget proposal eviscerates science funding at NASA

“This would decimate American leadership in space.”…

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Elizabeth V @geolizzy.bsky.social · 07/04/2025

New mines? In *this* economy?

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Prof Col Macpherson @colinmacpherson.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Bowen’s Reaction Series explains how magmas differentiate

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Zoltán Sylvester @zzsylvester.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

Spent the day at White Pocket, an area in northern Arizona with some of the most spectacular examples (1) of soft-sediment deformation in the Navajo Sandstone and (2) of the polygonal weathering that affects the resulting homogenous rock. These photos were taken with a drone (which is OK to use)

A view of the southern side of White Pocket. Polygonal weathering of the homogeneous sandstone layer at the top. In situ aeolian cross bedding is visible at the bottom.

$Polygonal weathering from the top. White sandstone fractured and eroded into intricate shapes$ Two domes covered with polygonal patterns on the left; soft sediment deformation (a swirly pattern of layered red sandstone) on the right

Two domes covered with polygonal patterns on the left; soft sediment deformation (a swirly pattern of layered red sandstone) on the right

Several red-colored foresets of the Navajo Sandstone are deformed to create beautiful shapes by the liquefaction of the wind-blown sand

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Ryan J Hollister @phaneritic.bsky.social · 23/03/2025

The mantle is orange/red.

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Elizabeth V @geolizzy.bsky.social · 22/03/2025

Rare earth elements are rare

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Tim Demko @timdemko.xyz · 22/03/2025

Fault "lines". Faults are planes or more likely complicated 3D surfaces.

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Callan Bentley @callanbentley.bsky.social · 16/03/2025

Arm-waving in front of a proper kernstone in Sierran granite adjacent to Crater Mountain in Owens Valley. ⚒️

Callan holds his hands above his head in front of an outcrop up jointed and spheroidally weathered granite. A prominent round unweathered portion is just above and to the right of Callan's left hand.

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Erik Haroldson @erikharold.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

Today some Sac State geology students and I went to a local K-8 school STEM event to teach about gold panning and the history of gold mining in the region.

Grad student Joey Scrivner showing the gold panning method.

Sac State undergrad students teaching about gold panning.

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Dr. Samantha Montano @samlmontano.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

I’ve come to learn many people don’t know this!

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Erik Haroldson @erikharold.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

Ugh... A lot of sad/alarming posts today from friends and colleagues at NSF, USGS, USFS etc.

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Erik Haroldson @erikharold.bsky.social · 18/02/2025

My favorite (/s) is when a search finds a page with all the metadata, but not the actual data.

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Tim Clancy @viewfromarchstreet.com · 08/02/2025

On changes to #NIH indirect rates, there is a law in place that prohibits NIH from making such changes without the approval of Congress. See Division D, Title II Section 224 of The Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024 (Public Law No: 118-47) grants.nih.gov/grants/guide...

grants.nih.gov

NOT-OD-24-110: Notice of Legislative Mandates in Effect for FY 2024

NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts: Notice of Legislative Mandates in Effect for FY 2024 NOT-OD-24-110. NIH

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Prof Richard Betts @richardabetts.bsky.social · 05/02/2025

Although NOAA's page on atmospheric CO2 levels has vanished, you can still get this vital information from Ralph Keeling's team at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego keelingcurve.ucsd.edu Please follow bsky.app/profile/keel... for updates and share Don't let science be hidden

A graph of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at the Mauna Loa observatory, Hawaii, from 1958 to 4th February 2025. It shows carbon dioxide levels rising at an accelerating rate over the decades. This is known to be due to emissions of carbon dioxide from human activity, mainly fossil fuel burning but also deforestation. The first CO2 concentration value in March 1958 was 315 parts per million (ppm). The latest daily value is 426 ppm. The graph also shows a seasonal cycle of a few ppm within each year, which is known to be linked to the growing season in the northern hemisphere causing a temporary uptake of carbon in spring and summer and release in autumn. The graph is produced routinely by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.

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Darby Saxbe @darbysaxbe.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

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Dr. Melissa Scruggs @volcanodoc.bsky.social · 04/02/2025

In case you need a timeline cleanse, here are two GORGEOUSLY zoned feldspars for your mineralogical pleasure!!

Plagioclase feldspar with zoned labradorescence

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Dan Garisto @dangaristo.bsky.social · 03/02/2025

NEW: We obtained the directions NSF program officers are following to review all grants for compliance with the Trump EOs and the turmoil it has created in an agency mandated to broaden STEM participation. Our story: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

nature.com

Exclusive: how NSF is scouring research grants for violations of Trump’s orders

The US National Science Foundation has unfrozen grant funding, but it continues to scrutinize research projects, sowing turmoil.

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Erik Gulbranson @erikgulbranson.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Took a few days after the NIH, but here we are. So much science and the lives and careers of students and postdocs depends on timely funding (and just timely communication). These delays will have an adverse impact.

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Dr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Hey, university friends, please don't focus your messaging on how the NIH funding pause affects *you* and the university. That will never resonate with others. Instead, focus on how this hurts important medical research and finding life-saving cures for all Americans.

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Brendan Nyhan @brendannyhan.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

Two things can be true 1. NIH and NSF could be run way better - the way we organize & fund science is hardly optimal 2. What we're seeing is NOT likely to lead to some sort of science reform but cronyism and culture war nonsense that undermines the valuable work NIH & NSF support Don't confuse them

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Dr. Wendy Bohon @drwendyrocks.bsky.social · 23/01/2025

I know it’s a lot (WHEW ITS A LOT), but we have to avoid falling in to the cycle of outrage. It takes away from the bandwidth we need to plan, organize, protect, and fight.

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Howard Lee @hlee.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

I came across this excellent online compass by NOAA. 👇 It gives the correct, up to date correction to True North for your location. I checked it against my analog compass. www.ngdc.noaa.gov/geomag/calcu...

ngdc.noaa.gov

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Dr. Lynne Elkins @ljelkins.bsky.social · 15/01/2025

Ooh, pretty!!

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Erik Haroldson @erikharold.bsky.social · 10/01/2025

Pleasant stop in SLC, with spectacular views of the Wasatch front! ⚒️

Wasatch range appears in distance, with an airport jetway in the foreground.

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P(aul) Frazee @pfrazee.com · 06/01/2025

We’re aware of the bot followers. We know it’s really irritating for yall. The blade runners are working hard and we’re looking at bigger steps.

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Callan Bentley @callanbentley.bsky.social · 03/01/2025

Is there a vertical fault running through the middle of this mountain? ~NE of Rodeo, NM. ⚒️

Photograph of a desert mountain of stratified rock. Most of it is yellow/green-gray, but the upper left quadrant is brick red-brown. The boundary between red and yellow is a vertical line running through a gully.

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Jolyon Ralph 🪨 @jolyon.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Everything on one chart. Mass vs Radius. Lineweaver, Charles H., Patel, Vihan M. (2023) All objects and some questions. American Journal of Physics, 91 (10). 819-825 doi:10.1119/5.0150209 pubs.aip.org/aapt/ajp/art...

A logarithmic plot visualizing mass versus physical radius, with various regions and phenomena labeled. The x-axis shows the log of physical radius (in centimeters, with equivalent Mpc at the top), ranging from the Planck length to the Hubble radius. The y-axis shows the log of mass (in grams, with equivalent energy in GeV at the right), spanning subatomic particles to galaxy clusters.

Regions include:

"Quantum uncertainty" at small radii and low masses, where quantum mechanics dominates.
"Forbidden by gravity," where gravity limits dense configurations like black holes.
"Sub-Planckian unknown," below Planck length and mass.
Labels for objects from fundamental particles (H+ and atoms) to humans, Earth, stars, and galaxies.
Stellar remnants (white dwarfs, neutron stars, black holes) and cosmological scales (Hubble radius, galaxy clusters).
Overlays indicating the dominant cosmological parameters (ΩΛ, Ωr, Ωm) in shaded colors. Key milestones, like the Sun, Earth, and Planck units, are marked for reference.

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Erik Haroldson @erikharold.bsky.social · 30/12/2024

Tide pooling with the fam. They're hunting for sea creatures. I'm here for the large phenocrysts. 😆⚒️

My finger next to a nice sized K-spar phenocryst.

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Erik Haroldson @erikharold.bsky.social · 29/12/2024

Cretaceous granodiorite in Monterey, CA. Was not expecting this here. ⚒️🧪

Random tourists atop a small cliff face at Lover's point.

Large orthoclase phenocrysts in granodiorite.

Small parallel aplite dikes in distant rock face.

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authodizer @doktrock.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

As an instructor, you can have your classes edit #Wikipedia articles as part of their curriculum. (My classes have done this for over a decade). See Wiki Education to get involved at wikiedu.org

wikiedu.org

Wiki Education

Wiki Education engages students and academics to improve Wikipedia

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Callan Bentley @callanbentley.bsky.social · 26/12/2024

Great visit to the Mazatzals today with @chronictectonic.bsky.social to look at deformed rocks!! ⚒️

Fisheye view of a folded layer of quartzite, about a foot thick. Stephanie for scale.

A cliff of chevron folded quartzite and shale layers. Lots and lots of high contrast layers buckled into very tight folds.

White en echelon tension gashes cutting through red quartzite. The tension gashes are faulted, causing some offsets.

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John Cook @johnfocook.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

The psychological challenge of climate change - our brains are hard-wired to respond to immediate threats, not a slow-motion disaster happening at a global scale (and that's not even considering the tsunami of misinformation hitting us every day).

Cartoon #1: What we're built for... A bear jumps out of a bush, a man cries "oh no, a bear!" Cartoon #2: What we face now... A graph jumps out of a bush, a bored man says "oh, a graph."

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John Garver @geogarver.bsky.social · 08/12/2024

Radioactive decay is difficult to envision unless you have a cloud chamber. Here I use a piece of naturally radioactive monazite crystal (~25 cm) to produce very energetic alpha particles - a decay product - that ionize alcohol-saturated vapor. I use this in Geochron and Natural Disasters classes.

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The Geochemistry Group @geochemgroup.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

We have started to put together a Geochemistry Starter pack. Please suggest others to add to the list and help grow our community! go.bsky.app/88B9vsg

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Erik Haroldson @erikharold.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

First earthquake of note for us since moving to Sacramento, CA. Didn't feel anything, but it got the pool rocking. ⚒️

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Erik Haroldson @erikharold.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

I'm bad at explaining metallic luster to students. It just seems intuitive to me... I say "It looks like metal" and show examples. It's clear some are not connecting with this seemingly simple concept. Do people just not interact with metallic things anymore? Suggestions to improve?

A picture of a nicely formed Galena cube, looks much like the Borg ship from Star Trek.

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Chris Rowan @allochthonous.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

⚒️ So I made a feed! It tracks some of the geo-focussed weekly hashtags that have migrated here from Twitter, like #ThinSectionThursday, #FossilFriday and #FridayFold. Focussing on hashtags where people share pretty and interesting rocks and landscapes. If there are more I should add, let me know!

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Robert Mahon @bedform.org · 23/11/2024

This

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Dr. Simon Jowitt @thejow.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

The 2023 Mineral Industry of Nevada annual report is out; if you are interested in metal, mineral, oil and gas and geothermal production and extraction in the Silver State, have a look: pubs.nbmg.unr.edu/The-Nevada-m...

pubs.nbmg.unr.edu

The Nevada mineral industry 2023

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