Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 3hGrading sed/strat exams and someone referred to a quartz arenite's cement as "silicone" (instead of silica). 🤭 ⚒️ 020
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026Today the #JMU Sed/Strat class continued our experiments with meandering river cutoffs using the EmRiver Em3 stream table. This second group had A LOT of fun playing with the stream table once their work was done. 😆 @emriver.bsky.social ⚒️🧪 youtu.be/nguqgi3grq8youtu.beMeandering River Cutoff Experiment 10/02/26YouTube video by JMUSedStrat 030
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 02/10/2026I'd like to congratulate #Quartz on winning #MinCup26. ⚒️ Reliable without flare. Will travel long distances, but only at moderate speeds. Can be many colors but often isn't. You truly are the 1999 Toyota Corolla of minerals. 1141
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 30/09/2026Today the #JMU Sed/Strat class begin our experiments with meandering river cutoffs using the EmRiver Em3 stream table. @emriver.bsky.social ⚒️🧪 www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmRj...youtube.comMeandering River Cutoff Experiment 9/30/26YouTube video by JMUSedStrat 292
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 29/09/2026This bag of rubber bands gave me a serious hankering for pappardelle. 010
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 29/09/2026My GenEd exams are pretty short and contain a representative, but not comprehensive, subset of material. But b/c a good chunk of content is not on exams (for brevity), some folks think that equates to the omitted content being trivial or extraneous. Kind of a weird take, no? #AcademicSky 100
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 29/09/2026Perhaps the most accurate description of Reddit that ever existed… 040
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 25/09/2026For this #FossilFriday, here is the bottom of a thin, little turbidite deposit. The sole marks include tool marks from nautiloids, with at least one visible at the end of the tool mark. 0132
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 25/09/2026This is the most egregiously unnecessary cubic spline I’ve ever seen in my life. 🥴 🧪📊 0151
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 23/09/2026I'm very relieved that Raygun has found a new career after the Olympics breakdancing disaster... www.nature.com/articles/s41...nature.comMiniaturizing and modifying natural proteins with Raygun - NatureProbabilistic sequence encoding from language model embeddings within a generative AI framework enables protein miniaturization, modification and augmentation while maintaining native architectur... 020
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 22/09/2026New form of anguish, by OneDrive: Anguish+ Email attachments cannot download, but you can save them to OneDrive. 🤗 Open OneDrive -> cannot load files -> close OneDrive Open OneDrive -> files load -> sort by most recent -> show from 2022 and earlier -> close OneDrive. Cool. 010
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 22/09/2026It's a rainy, chilly morning in the Shenandoah Valley. My toddler loves the rain, so he was the most excited, cheery person within about 1000 square miles. 090
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 21/09/2026Two new papers: we re-dated the Buluk fossil site in Turkana, Kenya, and applied proxies to reconstruct climate and vegetation. Out now in GSA Bulletin! @danpeppe.bsky.social @munyaka.bsky.social @kevinuno.bsky.social @geosociety.bsky.social #MammalMonday #isotope #GSAPubs 🧪⚒️🌱🌦️🐒 174
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 21/09/2026A simple, quick adaptation would be to use real grass (as the World Cup required in NFL stadiums). Transpiration cools down leaves, which plastic turf cannot do. Perhaps this is the example that will help my #GenEd students understand latent heat? 🧪 041
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 19/09/2026Gorgeous day for geology in Page Valley, VA! Our Sed/Strat class enjoyed turbidites of the late Ordovician Martinsburg Fm and braided stream deposits of the Silurian Massanutten Fm #JMU ⚒️🧪 2212
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 14/09/2026I recently set up a remote connection between my office and lab computers so I can more easily watch EA or IRMS batches run. Today I happened to glance at an EA batch and saw, in real time, the reduction tube get spent. Only lost 1 sample. How cool is that? Coulda been way worse! 🧪⚒️ #labwork 151
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 11/09/2026Have a gander at this here paleosol for #FossilFriday, only 360 million years young! (Hampshire Fm. of WV) 1) beautiful fossil root trace (rhizolith) plugged with calcite. 2) pedogenic carbonate nodule with nice septarian cracks. These billets have been sent out for thin sections. Stay tuned! ⚒️🧪 182
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 10/09/2026All things aside, nobody's answering the first question. 38. Everyone on this app is 38, now and forever. 150
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 10/09/2026This was not a good year for me to focus on gardening, so I threw some wildflower seed packs into my raised beds. Most of what grew turned out to be amaranth. It has a subtle beauty once blooming. It also looks like it’s flippin the bird to everyone, which is cool by me. #GardenSky #wildflower 010
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 09/09/2026Emissions from burning fossil fuels already kills >100k people each year, just from air pollution. Add in excess deaths from heat waves (>35k in Europe this year) and it's way higher. Data centers are supercharging our carbon emissions. 🧪 pubs.acs.org/estlcu/artic...pubs.acs.orgReducing Mortality from Air Pollution in the United States by Targeting Specific Emission SourcesAbstract. Air quality in the United States has dramatically improved, yet exposure to air pollution is still associated with 100000–200000 deaths annually. 3137
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 08/09/2026The theme of the day is things turning red. Outcrop of the Silurian Tuscarora Fm on Wills Mtn, WV. I found a couple beds that were distinctly rubified. I suspect they were pedogenically modified (paleosols). One or two red maples are also beginning to blush at the incoming autumn. 🍂 🪨⚒️🧪 081
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 08/09/2026Modern technologies are built upon incremental progress AND sudden innovation. Example: my coffee stirrer tent for reheating pizza (technological innovation) has recently been improved with wooden stirrers instead of plastic (incremental progress). #lifehack 🧪 #NobelPrizeContender 1339
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 07/09/2026My mental picture of Team Quartz. 😆 #MinCup26 ⚒️ p.s. - please know that I love you all dearly and I'm just poking fun. And also I'll never stop taunting you over your basic taste in minerals. 5131
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 06/09/2026Reviving this from 2 years ago to throw shade on Team Quartz. 🤪 #MinCup26 180
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 05/09/2026I was at a family function today near Harrisburg, PA. Found a few gorgeous hand samples of Triassic calcic Vertisols in my cousin’s back yard. I wish there were more outcrops of the Gettysburg Basin! ⚒️🧪 2361
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 03/09/2026Witnessed a rather dramatic thunderstorm cruise by last evening. Mammatus clouds and all kinds of dramatic booms from the distance. #weather 🧪 040
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 31/08/2026Come be my boss! JMU Geology is one of the best undergrad programs in the country. We have incredible facilities, very cool local geology, and a lovely community. Great place to work and live! Apps will be reviewed starting Nov 2. 🧪⚒️ #AcademicSky jobs.jmu.edu/jobs/academi...jobs.jmu.eduAcademic Unit Head, Geology & Environmental Science - Harrisonburg, Virginia, United StatesWorking Title: Academic Unit Head, Geology & Environmental Science State Role Title: N/A Position Type: Instructional / Teaching Faculty Position Status: Full-Time FLSA Status: Exempt: Not Eligibl... 0149
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 30/08/2026Well, somebody had a great day and/or a horrible day. Found these bad boys on the ground after the Harrisonburg Block Party welcoming JMU students back to town. The alarm button didn’t trigger any nearby cars. Yikes 🫠🥴 010
Reposted by Bill LukensMineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 29/08/2026Oooh, a bracket! www.mineralcup.org/2026/bracket 25235107
Reposted by Bill LukensNahel Belgherze @wxnb.bsky.social · 28/08/2026geopera.com/blog/bhote-k...geopera.comBhote Koshi Flood 2026: A Reconstruction from Open Satellite DataHow open satellite imagery reconstructed the 26 August 2026 Nepal flood: flow heights, velocities, sediment depths, and an interactive 3D model. 54019
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 28/08/2026Nothing like walking into an eerily silent lab the morning after a power outage. 😬 The orange X-ray lights are off, the IRMS vacuum pumps are off… lots of fun to sort out today! Our battery backups did their job, but the building backup generator did not! 🧪⚒️ 040
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Harrisonburg just got torn up by a band of wild thunderstorms. Trees down, many traffic lights and businesses without power. Good luck to everyone east of here! @callanbentley.bsky.social 020
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Just gonna juxtapose these two items... The reason why Nuclear is nearly a death-proof energy source is bc of regulations. We know where every spent rod is. Do we know where every fleck of coal fly ash is? 🧪⚒️ ourworldindata.org/grapher/deat...ourworldindata.orgDeath rates per unit of electricity productionDeath rates are measured based on deaths from accidents and air pollution per terawatt-hour of electricity. 095
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 27/08/2026Pro: our toddler (19mo) has reduced crying after daycare dropoff from 2hr > 1hr > 30min > 15 min > 5 min Con: Zeno’s paradox suggests he must cry each day, albeit briefly, until the heat death of the universe. #parenting #daycare #dad 010
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 26/08/2026Dudes. Friends. Comrades. Brothers, sisters, and others. #MinCup26 starts next week. ⚒️🧪 #geology #mineral #getready www.mineralcup.orgmineralcup.orgMineral Cup & Ore Cup 0174
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 25/08/2026Gotta say, the Imagination Library books are amazing. Every one that's arrived freshened up our reading options and seemed to be the right book at the right time. And signing up was an easy opt-in form at the hospital. Can't speak more highly of the program! Thanks #Dolly! RIP 020
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 25/08/2026The amendment to NCA5 wouldn’t allow reference to RCP8.5 or similar high emissions pathways as “business as usual” or a likely future unless similar results are found in lower emission scenarios.🤡 And yet, this is the administration doing their best to get us back on onto those exact pathways! 🧪⚒️ 252
Reposted by Bill LukensGeophotoMarli @marlimiller.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Preparing an Earth Sci or Geog course for fall? Please check out geologypics.com. There, find >5500 searchable captioned photos for free download to promote good instruction. Just uploaded 60 new photos I shot from this year-- coastal to desert, rocks to landforms. Please share! #teaching #geology 1217175
Reposted by Bill LukensDr. Jonathan Foley @globalecoguy.bsky.social · 22/08/2026So many people need to work on understanding the differences between a “stock” and a “flow”. It makes it far easier to understand things like the national debt versus an annual budget deficit. Or greenhouse gas levels in the air versus the annual emissions of pollution. And so on. And so on. 9548
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 20/08/2026Faculty retreats are just kidnapping for adults. You wouldn’t let your kids get in a car with a stranger. Don’t let your colleagues go into the conference room. #Spreadtheword #AcademicSky 040
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 19/08/2026What drives me nuts these days: economists thinking people's aversion to data centers is just misplaced anxiety about the future (etc). Shows up here yet again. What if, maybe, data centers building out massive fossil fuel power is actually bad for the climate? www.nytimes.com/2026/08/12/o...nytimes.comOpinion | A.I. Hype Is Running Into Reality 041
Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 19/08/2026This was a helpful read. I've been very confused as to why we hear about the lab leak "theory" so often, given the numerous high quality scientific papers on zoonotic origins (since 2020!)? Was I missing something? Turns out that mainstream media has really dropped the ball here... 🧪 1145