iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

For the first match of #MinCup26, I give to you this lovely, old school display that show how staining carbonate minerals with different chemicals can be used to ID them. #Smithsonite makes an appearance here, but #Azurite is missing because its easy to ID... no stain required

Hanging display with carbonate minerals glued to it. The display shows how different chemicals will stain carbonate minerals different colors, allowing you to identify them.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

The futility of bombing an opponent to victory is the center to Masters of the Air as well.

Cover of the the book Masters of Air by Donald Miller. Photograph that is the backdrop of the cover is of the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber on the ground with it aircrew in front of it.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

Congratulations to Dr. Amy Hagen (@spicegirl.bsky.social), who just successfully defended her dissertation this afternoon! Amy's dissertation is entitled Geochemical, paleontological and sedimentological exploration of the co-evolution of life and environment during the Cambrian Period.

Drs. Amy Hagen and Ben Gill stand next to Amy's dissertation presentation entitled Geochemical, paleontological and sedimentological exploration of the co-evolution of life and environment during the Cambrian Period.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

In a random coincidence, this morning I was uploading photos to my laptop from my visit to Table Mountain a couple years ago. ⚒️🧪

Photograph taken below Table Mountain in Newfoundland with a stream sourced from snow that can be seen near the summit that is flowing over brown and tan rocks.

Green and brown serpentine rock from Table Mountain Newfoundland. The texture on the rock's surface show the classic serpentine texture that looks like scales on a snake.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 10/04/2026

Happy #FossilFriday. Check out these awesome silicified Cambrian cyanobacteria fossils from the Harkless Formation from western Nevada from a publication in Palaios by @spicegirl.bsky.social. 🧪⚒️🔬

Scanning photomicrographs of cyanobacterial fossils from the 508-million-year-old Cambrian Harkless Formation of western Nevada. The fossil appear as microscopic filamentous chains of cells.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 16/11/2025

Oh no! Google Scholar is indexing young Earth creationist references?!

Google Scholar entry for a young Earth creationist paper entitled "North American Precambrian Geology: A Proposed Young Earth Biblical Model"

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

Did my second @skypeascientist.bsky.social visit with a class in South Korea last night. It was a lot of fun and I think I'm getting better at it. Kids can ask some of the hardest questions that come out of left field though

A laptop computer surrounded by a wipe board, dry erase markers, and mineral, rock, and fossil specimens.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Cephalopod fossils from the Middle Ordovician Table Point Formation Newfoundland, Canada ⚒️🧪 #FossilFriday

Impression of a coiled cephalopod shell in a grey limestone.

Straight, coned shaped cephalopod fossils in a dark grey limestone.

Coiled cephalopod fossil in a dark grey limestone.

Straight, coned shaped cephalopod fossil in a grey limestone. The shell cut revealing the chambers within.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 22/11/2024

Late entry for #ThinSectionThursday: An photomicrograph of an ooid grainstone from the Jurassic Smackover Formation of Louisiana, USA. This pretty thin section is from our teaching collection. 🧪⚒️

Photomicrograph of a limestone rock containing ooids: carbonate sand grains that have concentric rings on their insides. The ooids are surrounded by white, block calcite cement.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

Limestone packed with crinoid fossils (living up to its Dunham classification) from Mississippian Tin Mountain Limestone from just outside Death Valley, California, USA #FossilFriday

Outcrop of grey limestone containing many fragments of crinoid fossils.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 14/11/2024

A smiley face made of trilobite fossil fragments in a matrix glauconitic, peloidal grainstone. Photomicrograph taken under cross polarized light. Cambrian Shady Formation, Virginia, USA. #ThinSectionThursday

A photomicrograph of a limestone rock that contains pieces of trilobite fossils that look like a smiley face

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 21/08/2023

Clearly outside of my scientific lane, but got a chance to catch some cicada nymphs emerging from the ground, climbing a tree, and emerging from their exoskeletons as adults yesterday. An analogy for the beginning of the semester?

Newly metamorphosed cicada hanging on the underside of a tree branch that has just emerged from its nymph exoskeleton.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 19/08/2023

Taking the weekend off before classes start. Visiting Warm Springs, Virginia and got to see some nice microbial mats in the streams fed by the springs. Definitely some cyanobacteria and sulfide oxidizers in them. ⚒️

Microbial mats in a stream. Mats consists of green stringers with gas bubbles on them.

Microbial mats in a stream. Mats consists of green and white stringers.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 11/08/2023

On the drive back from doing fieldwork out west, I finally got to visit this big hole in the ground (Meteor Crater) in Arizona for the first time. It was made by the Cañon Diablo Meteor (now Meteorite) around 50,000 years ago. ⚒️

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 08/08/2023

More invertebrate fossils found this summer: The very smol-est orthocone cephalopod from the Ordovician Juab Formation of western Utah. If you look close you can see the chambers are variably filled with calcite cement and carbonate mud. You can also see the siphuncle toward the narrow end. ⚒️

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 07/08/2023

More fossils from field work this summer. These are receptaculites from the Middle Ordovician Pogonip Group of Southern Nevada. Receptaculites are an extinct group of organisms commonly called sunflower corals, but were likely calcareous algae. ⚒️ 🧪

Surface of a limestone rock with oval shaped fossils of receptaculites on it.

Surface of a limestone rock with semicircular shaped fossils of receptaculites on it.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 06/08/2023

Figured I'd share some more photos from field work earlier in the summer since the start of the semester is rapidly approaching. This a block of limestone from the lower Fillmore Formation in western Utah filled with tons of Ordovician fossil goodness: trilobites, broyzoans, and criniods. ⚒️

Surface of a limestone rock with fossils of trilobites, bryozoans, and crinoids on it.

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Benjamin Gill @sedgeochem.bsky.social · 03/08/2023

I figured I'd make my first post here a cool picture. Microbialites from the Cambrian Hellnmaria Member of the Notch Peak Formation of western Utah. Microbialites sedimentary deposits made by the action of microorganisms.

Outcrop of a rock with semi-circular microbialites exposed on the rock's surface.

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