iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

I'm working in an office in Slough industrial estate watching a gull collect sticks for a nest. I guess windowless data centres are just another form of cliff, their tops safe from predators.

010

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

Also holly bushes stop growing prickles above the browse line and this is at mammoth height, which is higher than deer height. E.g nearer 2 meters than 1.

010

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 10/04/2025

I read somewhere (I think via @jacquelyngill.bsky.social ?) the idea that Northern European forests are missing mammoths still. Before humans, they would have played the role of knocking down trees and creating clearings.

110

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

Lighting like this is necessary to make the features visible, but whenever I see images of Ediacaran fossils my first reaction is to think they are images from a vampire film.

Side-lit black and white image of Dracula. He's clutching a wall that might well have impressions of Eidacaran fossils on.

140

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 20/03/2025

Wow. This includes even one of my (quote obscure) scientific papers. Still behind a paywall and copyright the Royal Irish Academy

Screenshot of my obscure geological paper from the Atlantic search tool: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2025/03/search-libgen-data-set/682094/

040

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 06/03/2025

I always feel sorry for goniatites. My Northern English experience of them is crushed grey on grey shale impressions. Yet presumably in life they were just as much a zipping tentacled dealer of death as ammonites. Super useful index fossils as well, just nobody puts them on lamp posts.

140

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 03/03/2025

I like that the guy with the red beret is dressed as a tube of tomato paste.

000

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 16/02/2025

Enjoying the frenzied limestone at Augsburg station, noisy with tropical life. Plenty of fossils and blotchy with bioturbation. Each grain is the product of life and probably passed through the guts of, or been picked over by multiple critters subsequently ⚒️

Beige limestone. White flecks. A cross section of an ammonite in the middle

Similar to the other. A brown broken triangle shape is another fossil

050

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Samuele Papeschi サムエレパペスキ | Geology is the way ⚒️🧪 @calamitaman.bsky.social · 13/02/2025

1/ Have you ever suspected you had a shear zone hidden in poly-deformed metamorphic rocks but could not prove it? A brief thread showing how you can find clues from #geology, RSCM #thermometry, #metamorphic #petrology, and #zircon dating and an example from the Sanbagawa belt of Japan! ⚒️

blueschist-facies metabasite from our study area with complex, refolded isoclinal folds, consisting of alternating epidote and glaucophane layers.

3396

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 12/02/2025

People from Devon sometimes refer to themselves as 'Devonian'

140

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Ruth Siddall @pavementgeology.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Definitely go to the museum and buy the geo guidebooks. If you have transport go and see the suevite quarry at Altenburg, the overturned limestones at Gosheim Quarry and if you can get out to Steinheim crater, go there too 1/2

A picture of the guidebooks to the Ries and Steinheim impact craters by Julius Kayasch and the Meteor Crater Museum

232

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Lucky me is going to Nördlinger Ries soon (where a rock from space smashed into Germany). Just the town, briefly. Apart from the visitors centre and the church made of suevite, any ideas on what should I look out for? ⚒️

280

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

A single rock can give many different ages, to put it another way. What they mean is sometimes not so obvious....

120

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 07/02/2025

It depends on what they are getting the isotope age from. It's usually individual minerals. If those minerals are completely melted and reform, then you get a new age. Sometimes though minerals in an igneous rock weren't melted and show an older age. They're called 'antecrysts' IIRC.

130

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Henry Mance @henrymance.ft.com · 03/02/2025

just saw someone in the FT comments section referring to Tesla as the swasticar

41885115

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

I know it well. The red kites were exotic in the 90s but they've nearly reached London now. To my kids in suburban Reading they are totally normal, ever present.

010

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

You'll remember the cutting through the chalk then - quite spectacular in its way.

110

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

According to the Britice map shefuni.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappv... they are all drumlins.

shefuni.maps.arcgis.com

ArcGIS Web Application

010

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Exactly. Arguably lidar is even better for tracing human activities

110

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Then the sinuous etched land of the Chilterns. The product of slow dissection of a huge slab of chalk. Frozen but not scoured by the Ice Ages. Some of these valleys have no streams.

Grey/blue image of a landscape, with curved valleys

140

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 31/01/2025

Revelling in the lidar DTM layer in the National library of Scotland website and the varied types of British landscapes it unveils. First we have glacially shaped land in the Vale of Eden looking like the skin of a dinosaur. ⚒️

Smooth scalloped shapes in grey/blue colours.

2110

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

That's my experience also. I suspect there are a lot of bad training courses out there that people rightly take a dislike to.

010

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Myers-Briggs can go too far, but most of its dimensions are similar to those in academic psychology's 'Big Five' with the vital caveat that they are descriptive. You can't tell your employees to change who they are but you can get them to think about psychological differences.

110

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Ruth Siddall @pavementgeology.bsky.social · 29/01/2025

Next month, I’ll be starting my year’s programme of #urbangeology walks introducing the building stones of London with London Walks. The first date is 8 Feb. Cost, details and reservations at this link www.walks.com/our-walks/ge...

walks.com

Geology and Building Stones in the City of London - London Walks

Thinking about going on the guided Geology and Building Stones in the City of London tour? Have a little read about the sights, hidden spots, your guide and meeting point beforehand!

59922

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Victoria Finlay @victoriafinlay.bsky.social · 28/01/2025

And there’s nothing like visiting a 5800 year old #LongBarrow for putting things in perspective. I also chose the hour where it was lit up by the sun. Do you spot the #Ammonite?

1133

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

By jiggling around in the insides of some big bird/dinosaur, making it a gastrolith.

050

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 27/01/2025

Wonderful. Is there any research on the gold sourcing?

100

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Cormac MacFhionnlaoich @cormacscoast.bsky.social · 22/01/2025

Any ideas on a species for this seed pod/nut? Local or from further afield? Found it washed up on the beach this morning. County Clare, Ireland.

172

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Samuele Papeschi サムエレパペスキ | Geology is the way ⚒️🧪 @calamitaman.bsky.social · 20/01/2025

#GeologicalRelief for my American friends... Some of the best folds I have seen in my life in schists and metasandstones... second phase folds refolding an earlier foliation parallel to bedding. Paleozoic basement, Bocca di Magra, La Spezia (Italy) #geology #folds #structuralgeology ⚒️🧪

Folded metasandstones surrounded by schists (a type of metamorphic rock) with a pen for scale.

0575

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Cormac MacFhionnlaoich @cormacscoast.bsky.social · 19/01/2025

Fossilized Colonial Coral from a Burren stormbeach. It's been over 300 million years since the living coral, that left this imprint, grew on the tropical sea bed that covered this area. County Clare, Ireland.

0658

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Ruth Siddall @pavementgeology.bsky.social · 14/01/2025

The Alpine Foreland exposed in the facade of Santa Maria Novella; pietreforte molasse, Prato serpentinite and marble from the metamorphic Tuscan nappe #Florence #UrbanGeology

The lower part of the facade of the basilica with steps of brown sandstone (molasse), dark green serpentinite and white marble

The basilica of Santa Maria Novella and the piazza in front of it.

0191

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 12/01/2025

I'm simultaneously cooking a white sauce and a beetroot curry (separate meals). I'm quivering with delicious horror at the thought of accidentally using the curry spoon to stir the white sauce.

130

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 11/01/2025

Explain your username.. I used to be a geologist, but I changed (metamorphosed) into something else (I have a different career). I don't mean meta in the sense of above or beyond, just the geo one of transformation. Needless to say, on here I am very much about the geology

180

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Andy @fuelledbyoatcakes.bsky.social · 06/01/2025

Chalcopyrite & calcite from Ecton mine, Ecton Hill, Staffordshire, England, UK. Specimen ~ 48 mm longest dimension. #MineralMonday #Minerals #Geology #EarthScience #mineralogy

0132

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 24/12/2024

Lovely. Those look like layers of magma, rather than sedimentary strata.

000

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 19/12/2024

My experience as well - magma intrusion isn't a static process either

030

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Jolyon Ralph 🪨 @jolyon.bsky.social · 16/12/2024

So I was given this old trophy that had a rock on it, and turns out it's a piece of "platinum-rich"* ore from the Merensky Reef, South Africa. Some nice visible chromite and sulfides (pentlandite/pyrrhotite?) along with the usual silicate gunk. * Everything is relative.

A piece of merensky reef rock on a trophy dated 1974, "The Johnson Matthey Award"

0405

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

This sea wall is made of shelly limestone blocks. One fossil caught my eye. Any ideas what it might be?

Buff limestone block with white traces of a fossil

071

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Maybe needs a generic word for boundary - here's a tree that ate a wall in the West Country. www.somersetcountygazette.co.uk/news/1548825...

An irregular flat face of a tree with bricks embedded in it.

010

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Folded Moine sediments, shores of Loch nan Uamh, Arisaig #Scotland. Note how the feldspar grains (white blebs) are aligned horizontally, parallel with the 'axial plane' of the fold. #FridayFold ⚒️🧪

A sun-kissed rock surface shows folded layers of rock.

0256

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

No matter. They collected 382 kg in total and we already have more than that (∼1026 kg) from meteorites from the Moon found on earth. arxiv.org/pdf/2408.16840

arxiv.org

000

Simon Wellings @metageologist.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Oceanic tides are pretty, but when this planet was *very* young it was subject to magma tides. Following a BIG collision both Earth and Moon were balls of molten rock, each affected by the gravitational pull of the other.

041

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Suvrat Kher @rapiduplift.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Spectacular banded metamorphic rocks exposed along the high Sunderdunga ridge. Kumaon Himalaya.

Pic shows the Sunderdunga ridge in the Kumaon Himalaya with spectacular exposures of high grade metamorphic rocks. Distinct white, grey layering is visible along the scarps.

0683

Reposted by Simon Wellings

GHOULology Johnson @geologyjohnson.bsky.social · 09/12/2024

High res photo of a tiny piece of #Jurassic shale coated in tiny bivalves. This was deposited at the start of a catastrophic climate change event. The bivalves are tiny versions of adults that adapted to the low O2 conditions on the seabed. #geology #paleontolgy

photograph of a small piece of mudstone that is covered in tiny mussel shells. A scale at the bottom shows that the rock is approx 2 cm wide, and 4 cm long.

1151

Reposted by Simon Wellings

Wolfgang Büttner @wbuett.bsky.social · 07/12/2024

Piece of spectacular anorthosite-chromitite layering, coming from a depth of about 2500 m below surface of the Impala Platinum mine, Bushveld Complex, South Africa.

Size is about 18 x 16 cm.

The origin and forming of these layers is still debated.

The origin and forming of these layers is still debated.

44711

Reposted by Simon Wellings

OUGS Social Media @ougeolsoc.bsky.social · 06/12/2024

A #FridayFold in Old Portsmouth, Hampshire, England where there's loads of naval history. From the "Russian" aka "Crimean" War mid 19th century. Local bedrock in the Åland Islands in the Baltic off the west coast of Finland is Proterozoic granite

0184