University of Texas Institute for Geophysics

AT this week's #utigseminars

At this week's #UTIGSeminars! Abstract and more: ig.utexas.edu/utig-seminar...

At this week's #UTIGSeminars! Abstract and more: ig.utexas.edu/utig-seminar...

At this week's #UTIGSeminars! Abstract and more: ig.utexas.edu/utig-seminar...

At this week's #UTIGSeminars! Abstract and more: ig.utexas.edu/utig-seminar...

At this week's #utigseminars Kelly Nunez Ocasio, Texas A&M University. Abstract and more at ig.utexas.edu/utig-seminar...

At this week's #UTIGSeminars! Abstract and more: ig.utexas.edu/utig-seminar...

At this week's #UTIGSeminars!

Abstract and more: ig.utexas.edu/events/utig-...

Jiaxuan Li at #UTIGSeminars

At this week's #UTIGSeminars!

Abstract and more: ig.utexas.edu/events/utig-...

Erica Jawin at #utigseminars, Friday, September 12

At this week's #UTIGSeminars!

Abstract and more:https://ig.utexas.edu/events/utig-seminar-series-fall-2025/utig-seminar-series-erica-jawin-smithsonian-institution/

At this week's #UTIGSeminars Louise Farquharson will discuss Not So Permanent Permafrost.

Abstract and more: ig.utexas.edu/events/utig-seminar-series-fall-2025/utig-seminar-series-louise-farquharson-university-of-alaska/

Mother of Plays: Daenerys, Far South and the Gulf’s Miocene Future It’s Miocene again in America. Offshore America, anyway. BP brought the Gulf’s deepwater Miocene play back into the headlines with its Far South oil discovery, announced in April. The Green Canyon-are...

READ: AAPG Explorer magazine reached out to
GBDS director Richard Denne and co-director Mike Sweet to learn about the geology, history and likely future of one of the Gulf's richest energy veins: the Mother of Miocene Plays!🐉

Requires (free) registration: explorer.aapg.org/story/articl...

The history of the ocean, as told by tiny beautiful fossils Bountiful remains of foraminifera reveal how organisms responded to climate disturbances of the past. They can help predict the future, too.

It's #ForamFriday! They're bizarre and beautiful, and their fossilized shells are a window into the past!

UTIG's @chrislowery.bsky.social talked with @knowablemag.bsky.social about what forams can tell us about mass extinctions and climate change.

Read more: knowablemagazine.org/content/arti...

Scientists to Gather at UT to Push Forward Earthquake Science - UT Institute for Geophysics The University of Texas at Austin will host an international gathering of earthquake researchers focused on better understanding the conditions that cause earthquakes and the science behind where and ...

The International Earthquake Science Symposium was first launched here in Austin. Learn more about where it all began: ig.utexas.edu/news/2024/sc...

Photo of a speaker at a podium talking to a room of people.

UTIG grad student, Nicole Ferrie, presents research at the 2nd Joint International Earthquake Science Symposium!

UTIG researchers and students have joined colleagues in Yokohama, Japan to discuss the latest progress on understanding the world's largest and most dangerous earthquakes.

Ocean Current Affairs in the Gulf of Mexico - Eos Multinational and multidisciplinary studies of the past and present of the Gulf’s Loop Current are helping to reveal what might be in store for coastal communities.

Scientists at UTIG and UNAM are calling for renewed investigations of the Gulf of Mexico's Loop Current, a linchpin in global ocean currents and key suspect behind strengthening hurricanes in the Gulf.

Read more: eos.org/science-upda...

UT Austin Grad Students Find Missing Link in Early Martian Water Cycle - UT Institute for Geophysics Billions of years ago, water flowed on the surface of Mars. But scientists have an incomplete picture of how the Red Planet’s water cycle worked. That could soon change after two graduate students at ...

Mars was once an ocean-covered world. But what was that ancient planet like?

UTIG grad students Mohammad Afzal Shadab (now at Princeton University) and Eric Hiatt are turning up answers after uncovering a missing piece of Mars' ancient water cycle.

Read more: ig.utexas.edu/homepage-new...

Photo of two students posing for the camera at a geosciences student research symposium. Ad reads: Now Hiring. Undergrad Research Assistant.

Be an Undergraduate Research Assistant in energy geosciences at UT's Gulf Basin Depositional Synthesis Program!

Students will assist GBDS researchers and will have opportunities to pursue independent research.

Learn more and apply: ig.utexas.edu/student-oppo...

40 Hours for the Forty Acres is here! This year, you can provide support in three ways that impact students at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics and the Jackson School:

give.utexas.edu/schools/Univ...

give.utexas.edu/schools/Univ...

give.utexas.edu/schools/Univ...

Rainbow lake bathymetry. The cooler colors in the middle indicate deeper waters. An outline of a boat is in the middle of the image.

On a recent survey of Lake Austin, UTIG's research vessel, the RV Scott Petty, discovered a sunken wreck!

While there's unlikely to be treasure down there, the colorful sonar surveys help the City maintain Austin's treasured waterways.

More UTIG lake research: ig.utexas.edu/tag/lake-aus...

Rainbow lake bathymetry. The cooler colors in the middle indicate deeper waters. An outline of a boat is in the middle of the image.

On a recent survey of Lake Austin, UTIG's research vessel, the RV Scotty Petty, discovered a sunken wreck!

While there's unlikely to be treasure down there, the colorful sonar surveys help the City maintain Austin's treasured waterways.

More UTIG lake research: ig.utexas.edu/tag/lake-aus...

It wasn't easy! Armed with just a geologist's rock hammer (suspiciously like a dwarven axe), Mandala dodged werewolves and battled dragons to conduct an exhaustive geologic field survey of Tamriel's most northern province.

Find the full video on YouTube (at)ChiMandaTV.

🗺️ Contour map of Skyrim.

Did you know, the Skyrim mountains are a convergent plate boundary and the Rift is an uplifted plateau? Jackson School senior and UTIG undergrad researcher Mandala Pham, put her geology skills to use creating THE definitive geologic map of the videogame Skyrim.

🗺️ Mandala's geologic map of Skyrim

Friday, April 25, 2025 at 10:30am CT Speaker: Jud Partin, Research Associate Professor, University of Texas Institute for Geophysics Host: Yuko Okumura Title: Back to the Future: Ancient El Niño events in a Warming World

This Friday on #UTIGSeminars: Natural climate swings cast a fog of uncertainty over global warming predictions.

But Jud Partin and the UTIG climate group have (literally) dug into Earth's climate past and found that climate-wise, bad times are coming!

Abstract & more:
ig.utexas.edu/utig-seminar...

Congratulations UTIG grad student Riley Garrett, on earning best Master's talk prize at yesterday's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences awards!

Congratulations also to Knebel Teaching award winners Mrinal Sen, Peter Flemings and Thorsten Becker, and all the other award winners! 🤘

Friday, April 18, 2025 at 10:30am CT Speaker: Alexandra (Allie) Balter-Kennedy, Postdoctoral Scholar, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory Host: Benjamin Keisling Title: Update from the GreenDrill project: Evidence for reduced northern Greenland Ice Sheet extent during the Pleistocene from subglacial rock and sediment

This week on #UTIGSeminars: Greenland's ice is melting fast, but how far will glaciers retreat and how much will seas rise? Enter Allie Balter-Kennedy (LDEO) and GreenDrill, a project to recover geologic evidence of past deglaciation.

Join us this Friday 10:30am CT: ig.utexas.edu/utig-seminar...

UTIG engineering scientist Dan Duncan gives the safety briefing.

UTIG admin staff Sara Sieberath and Ron O'Neill deploy a side-scan sonar instrument.

UTIG's Ben Hester gets ready to haul in the RV Scott Petty's multibeam sonar instrument.

UTIG's JJ Dupont shows off a sediment sample she bagged and tagged after hauling it up from the riverbed. The samples will be studied by UTIG lab researchers to better understand the health of Austin's lakes, including the prevalence of microplastics.

UTIG admins were out doing fieldwork again! This year, our plucky admins were aboard the RV Scott Petty learning to use sonar and sediment scoops to survey Lake Austin.

The fieldwork is scientifically valuable and a chance for staff to get hands-on with UTIG's research. Good sciencing y'all!

Group photos at Apollo Mission Control.

Selfie on the tour bus.

!

It's a planetary field trip! Organized by students of the Planetary Peer Network at UT Austin's Center for Planetary Systems Habitability, students and postdocs took a field trip to NASA Johnson Space Center.

More on UT planetary habitability science habitability.utexas.edu

Photos: Medha Prakash

#NewPaper alert! 🧪⚛️
We simulate the dynamo of ancient Mars and provide a possible explanation of its anomalous magnetic field.

Molten Martian Core Could Explain Red Planet’s Magnetic Quirks - UT Institute for Geophysics Like Earth, Mars once had a strong magnetic field that shielded its thick atmosphere from the solar wind. But now only the magnetic imprint remains. What’s long baffled scientists, though, is why this...

Simulations of Mars' molten core could explain the Red Planet's missing magnetic field.

New research from @utaustin.bsky.social and @jhuartssciences.bsky.social: ig.utexas.edu/news/2025/mo...

@insideplanets.bsky.social
@astrodoc.bsky.social
@planetsabine.bsky.social
@cyanmagnetic.bsky.social