iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

In diesem Jahr findet die 21. Potsdamer Kinder-Universität statt, mit mehr als 2.000 Dritt- und Viertklässler:innen. Ich bin auch in diesem Jahr und zum neunten Mal dabei, mit zwei Vorlesungen zum Thema Klima und Menschheitsentwicklung. Freue mich sehr! www.uni-potsdam.de/kinderuni

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Teaching Live Online Courses in the Age of AI Last week, I taught my traditional fall course on data analysis in the geosciences to a class of just 14 students, only 8 of whom were actually participating live online. Have courses like this become obsolete? mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/09/21/t...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

One of my professors at the University of Karlsruhe once said, “No book is as good as its next edition.” Here are the corrections for MRES (6th Edition 2025) and PRES (2nd Edition 2024), along with links to the corrected Supplementary Materials: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/08/12/m...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Here's another example of minimal coding: an artificial neural network (#ANN) with backpropagation in 6 Steps. ANNs have been the focus of great attention since the introduction of generative artificial intelligence (#AI) chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/09/08/a...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 21/07/2026

Computer code is becoming increasingly complex, making it difficult for beginners to understand. Here is an example of minimal #coding — that is, reducing computer code to the absolute minimum, just two lines of code to calculate a periodogram: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/07/19/m...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 18/07/2026

Computer code is becoming increasingly complex, making it difficult for beginners to understand. Here is an example of minimal #coding—that is, reducing computer code to the absolute minimum, 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲𝘀 of code to perform a #PCA: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/07/18/m...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 04/07/2026

For three days, we celebrated DeepCHB, a new ICDP - International Continental Scientific Drilling Program initiative in the Chew Bahir Basin in southern Ethiopia, together with nearly 90 scientists from 18 countries. Let's go drilling again, this time 1.25 km deep into African's climate history!

Group foto of participants of the ICDP DeepCHB workshop at the Potsdam Online Hub.

Group foto of early career participants of the ICDP DeepCHB workshop at the Potsdam Online Hub.

Group foto of participants of the ICDP DeepCHB workshop at the Mado Hotel in Addis Ababa Ethiopia.

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Why do some people still buy vinyl records when you can stream everything digitally these days? It’s not, as is often claimed, because they allow you to hear frequencies that are lost when music is digitized. No, it’s something else, as you can read here: lnkd.in/d4eUbz83

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

In spectrometry—for example, in remote sensing—Gaussian filters or, because they are believed to cause less distortion, Savitzky-Golay filters are often used to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of spectra. Read here to find out how to do it better: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/06/13/c...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 10/06/2026

AI changed everything, also the way we search for literature, create figures, and write summaries. Teaching a course on the scientific workflow and having published two editions of a book on the topic, it was time for a change. And two new books! mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/06/10/c...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 07/06/2026

When I show my students that the sine of pi in MATLAB or Python is not 0 but 1.2246e-16, I usually see looks of astonishment on their faces. However, this result is not incorrect; rather, it follows the rules of floating-point arithmetic. mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/06/07/w...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐛𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜 𝐈𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 Can you still run the computer code you wrote back in the 1990s? How would you go about finding where you saved the code? On a 3.5-inch floppy disk? But now, you no longer have a drive to read the files on the disk. mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/05/31/t...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Yesterday I was standing in front of my bookshelf; it’s been 20 years since the 237 p. first edition of MATLAB Recipes for Earth Sciences, 77 figures and a CD-ROM 😉 , was published. How many copies do you have? What do you think of the Chinese edition on the far left? @springernature.com

Image of Springer Books by Martin H. Trauth in a bookshelf.

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

Our new book entitled "Collecting, Processing and Presenting Geoscientific Information with Python" has just been announced by Springer Nature: link.springer.com/book/9783032... Provides an up-to-date introduction to the complete workflow of scientific work, with numerous examples, including AI.

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 07/05/2026

A small group of students approached me and asked about a course on creative writing and public speaking. It turned into a very down-to-earth course right in the midst of the AI era—with plenty of coffee! Read about how it went: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/05/07/b...

The illustrative image was created using ChatGPT on 7 May 2026.

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 14/04/2026

Online registration for the 63th shortcourse on MATLAB and Python Recipes for Earth Science is now open at digiconference.de/63rd-shortco... See you online on 14–18 September 2026 👍

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 04/04/2026

If you are looking for an international #Master's program in #Geosciences without tuition fees, with many courses in modern data analysis, remote sensing and geoinformation systems, the U Potsdam is the right place for you! Please visit the following website for more information: lnkd.in/de8RgJd5

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

ChatGPT’s launch in November 2022 necessitated a revamp of academic writing and presenting courses and a rewrite of a book, resulting in two new books for MATLAB and Python. mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/03/30/t...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

We have written a paper on the background of the Chew Bahir Drilling Project as part of the ICDP Hominin Sites and Paleolakes Drilling Project. In it, we cover everything from the initial idea to the key findings, including all the setbacks and successes. sd.copernicus.org/articles/35/...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

More than 30 years ago, I began teaching courses on data analysis in the earth sciences. 20 years ago, I started thinking about writing textbooks. Now there are six textbooks and many different course formats for you. Here are the options for you: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/10/15/o...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 05/03/2026

You'll see me online at the Master Information Day announced below if you are interested in studying geosciences tuition free at U Potsdam in Germany! www.uni-potsdam.de/en/geo/study...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

After more than a year of writing, the two complementary books on (geo)scientific work with consideration of AI applications are now in print at SpringerNature! mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/01/13/c...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 23/01/2026

Wikipedia, celebrating its 25th birthday, is facing numerous challenges: dwindling number of contributors, the struggle against AI, and the exploitation of AI chatbots. #wikipedia #ai mres.uni-potsdam.de/2026/01/23/h...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the way geoscientific information is collected, processed, and presented. Having authored two editions of a book on this subject, it was time for a change. This month, I'm thrilled to announce that I'll be submitting two new books to SpringerNature!

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Reposted by Martin H. Trauth

International Continental Scientific Drilling Program ICDP @icdpdrilling.bsky.social · 19/11/2025

📢 Workshop CALL: Deep CHB (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) Deep Chew Bahir Drilling Project WHEN 📆 June 30th – July 3rd, 2026 CALL ▶️ www.icdp-online.org/fileadmin/Ne... MORE INFO ℹ️ www.icdp-online.org/all-events/d...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

AI changed everything, also the way of collecting, processing and presenting geoscientific information. Having published two editions of a book on the topic, it was time for a change. And two new books. mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/11/11/c...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 11/11/2025

The #Python and #MATLAB Recipes for Earth Sciences books are back in the top 100 at Springer Earth and Environment, the last two editions each. Thank you all for continuing to buy the books, even though they can usually be downloaded from university libraries! www.springernature.com/de/bookselle...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Young people—as I was back then—do not really appreciate how quickly their valuable data, painstakingly created graphics, and carefully crafted texts can become unreadable. Here are a few thoughts on this and a recommendation: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/11/08/s...

The photo shows ~2500-year-old rock art on a basalt cliff in the southern Turkana Basin, Kenya, a good example of sustainability.

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 08/11/2025

Unfortunately, in many courses in geosciences worldwide, university-level mathematics and computational geosciences is not included, as my experience from processing this year’s masters applications suggests. mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/11/07/h...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Detecting, measuring and classifying #transitions in #climate time series is an important application in modern time series analysis. Three methods are presented here, taken from my #Python and #MATLAB Recipes for Earth Sciences (2024, 2025) books: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/10/31/a... #geosciences

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 31/10/2025

Cretaceous #echinoid fossil, island of Rügen, Germany. Stack of five images, shot with a Nikon Z fc with a Nikkor Z MC 50 mm 1:2.8, auto focus, aperture 29, exposure time 1.3 s, and ISO 400. Size of the fossil is about 3 cm. #FossilFriday

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 24/10/2025

Hungry bumblebees crowd together, sometimes three at a time, on the last nodding thistle (Carduus nutans) on the dry grassland south of Potsdam's Südforst forest. Germany, on a sunny October day, shot with a Nikon Z fc with a Nikkor Z MC 50 mm 1:2.8.

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

On April 1, 2022, a satellite was launched as part of the German EnMAP program to collect hyperspectral satellite data, which can be obtained free of charge. Here are MATLAB script to display the spectra of single pixels and flatfields: tinyurl.com/3atmxkss tinyurl.com/55vyu6e9

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

The USGS spectral library is an important database of mineral spectra, which is used as a reference for the spectrometric determination of unknown substances. Here is a simple #MATLAB program that can be used to load and display the spectra of several minerals. mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/10/16/i...

Display of mineral spectra from the USGS spectral library.

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 20/09/2025

Am 26. September 2025 ist wieder Kinder-Universität an der Universität Potsdam. Ich bin wieder mit zwei Vorlesungen dabei, "Knochenjob in Ostafrika–Unterwegs auf den Spuren der ersten Menschen" und "Was war los im nördlichen Afrika, bevor es Pyramiden gab?". www.uni-potsdam.de/de/medieninf...

uni-potsdam.de

20-mal Wissenschaft zum Anfassen – Potsdamer Kinder-Universität feiert Jubiläum mit Rekordprogramm

Medieninformation 17-09-2025 / Nr. 088

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

Today marks the start of the 60th compact course based on my textbooks #MATLAB Recipes for Earth Sciences, 6th Edition (Springer 2025) and #Python Recipes for Earth Sciences, 2nd Edition (Springer 2024). I am looking forward to this new round of teaching online! mres.uni-potsdam.de/2024/10/23/o...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 11/09/2025

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have been used for quite some time to identify, for example, flowers in easy-to-use apps on smartphones. Here's an #ANN with backpropagation in 6 steps, now with both #MATLAB and #Python code: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/09/08/a...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Multispectal imaging captures images across multiple spectral bands. Here is a #MATLAB example using #MAPIR cameras where eight different spectral bands in visible light and near infrared show differences in a rock sample that are invisible to the human eye. tinyurl.com/bd9by86r #geoscience

Multispectral imaging of a Permian druse showing eight different wavelengths in the range of 450 nm and 850 nm in pseudocolor plots.

Agate druse, basalt, "melaphyr", 290 million years, Permian, Waldhambach, Germany, shot with a Nikon Z fc with a Nikkor Z MC 50 mm 1:2.8, auto focus. Width of the druse is about 10 cm.

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 11/08/2025

Thanks to the ongoing support of MathWorks Inc. through their Curriculum Development Program, I was able to purchase two more spectral cameras. Here is an example of how to import and process the images of an agate druse sampled from a Permian basalt in #MATLAB: tinyurl.com/54umubv4 #geoscience

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 09/08/2025

Due to two cancellations, we have reopened the registration portal for you! As always, it's about 15-20 people online, lectures and live coding sessions, prerecorded on the course website and you can work on exercises and an individual project to get up to six credit points! shorturl.at/VzWLn

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Reposted by Martin H. Trauth

International Continental Scientific Drilling Program ICDP @icdpdrilling.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

KIND workshop last week in Potsdam (Germany): 65 scientists from all over the world gathered in Potsdam discussing ideas for scientific drilling of Lake Kinneret to address question of paleoclimate variability and its link to human evolution ℹ️ www.icdp-online.org/projects/by-...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

As part of upcoming ICDP KIND workshop this weekend on Lake Kinneret Drilling, I will give a presentation on climate time series analysis, methods, and applications. I have compiled a list of courses, books, and papers by us during the last decade: mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/07/09/r...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Yesterday, I had a visit from an 11th grade class from a high school. I gave a talk on the climate tipping point 5,000 years ago and ancient Egypt, and had the students solve some problems using AI. It was alarming to hear that AI is not a topic covered in class. #geoscience

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 09/07/2025

Potassium is a proxy for aridity in Chew Bahir, Ethiopia, due to the increasing illitization of smectites in a gradually drying lake. V Förster and colleagues have investigated this in detail—and last year we showed that this was even the case 379 kyr ago, as found at a core at 200 m. #geoscience

The potassium record of Chew Bahir of the last 20.000 years from a sediment core, showing the African Humid Period between 15.000 and 5500 years ago, interrupted by a dry episode during the Younger Dryas Stadial.

Photo of the dried out Chew Bahir lake in southern Ethiopia.

Screenshot of the paper Foerster et al., Palaeo3 2018.

Screenshot of the paper by Trauth et al., Nature Communications 2024.

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Reposted by Martin H. Trauth

Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 08/04/2025

If you are looking for an international #Master's program in #Geosciences without tuition fees, with many courses in modern data analysis, remote sensing and geo information systems, the @unipotsdam is the right place for you! www.uni-potsdam.de/en/geo/study...

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Martin H. Trauth @martinhtrauth.bsky.social · 01/07/2025

We still have a few spots left for our online short course on my books, now of course also featuring AI applications. See you in September! mres.uni-potsdam.de/2025/04/29/6...

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Reposted by Martin H. Trauth

Universität Potsdam @unipotsdam.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

Bis zum 15. Juli 2025 können sich Studieninteressierte online für einen zulassungsbeschränkten grundständigen Studiengang ab dem WiSe 2025/2026 bewerben – sowohl im ersten als auch in höheren Fachsemestern. Zum Bewerbungsportal und weitere Infos: www.uni-potsdam.de/de/medieninf...

uni-potsdam.de

Jetzt online bewerben für zulassungsbeschränkte grundständige Studiengänge zum Wintersemester

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