The meaning of precision in geographical degrees.
±100°: You don't know where it is.
±10°: You know it's on a specific continent.
±1°: You know it's within about an hour's drive.
±0.1°: You could bike to it.
±0.01°: You could walk to it.
±0.001°: You could probably see it.
Just submitted the paper on this today. You can find sneak peaks on the models here www.thingiverse.com/GEUSVR/designs
+ other geology 3D-models
Steve Terrill’s photograph of Mount St. Helens erupting on May 18, 1980, viewed from Yale Lake: a massive gray ash column billows above the volcano’s snow-streaked cone, with dark evergreen ridges and the lake in the foreground; the image is shown here as a black-framed print with faint reflections on the plastic cover. Photo of photo by admin.
Steve's photo hung up in my office at my one job. This is from about ten years ago.
Not a great print bought online, but hey, I had my own office for the first time. Had to zhuzh it up.
Work at a science place? Put up some science wall art.
Awesome ⚒️🧪 paper with clever use of soft sediment cores and CT scanning to deduce the location and size of ancient earthquakes to help plan for future events. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Scientists: for a new story, I have one big question—>
What is a “good day” in the lab?
I’m looking for epic examples of the best day ever to general criteria for what constitutes a “good day” compared to a nothing-burger day.
Ping me if you have examples to share!
Re-posts appreciated!
A most sensational inspirational celebrational Muppetational thread...
(And go watch the Muppet Show special if you haven't already. It. Is. Awesome.)
Joan Wiffen, self-taught palaeontologist known for discovering the first dinosaur fossils in New Zealand, was born #OTD, 1922. wp.me/p3ihHu-4YT #WomeninSTEM 🧪⚒️
Technical staff are often overlooked and underrepresented at Scientific meetings...
We hope to address this with our new Technical Staff Meeting Attendance Bursary!
Please visit our website for full details and to apply: geochemistry.group/funding-oppo...
Yes, that seems typical for image creation. And in my experience any attempt to instruct it to make improvements will just make it worse.
Don't say: "There are too many rocks", Say: "Not enough shelves"
Product display showing several pink‑fletched carbon arrows arranged diagonally on a white background. The brand logo ‘ACCMOS’ appears at the top left, with orange Chinese text beside it. Smaller thumbnail images of different arrow styles are shown below, along with the product title ‘Earthquake-resistant 3K pure carbon true feather arrows.’
Didn't realise there was an overlap between 🏹 archery and ⚒️🧪 seismology, but I'll now be looking for earthquake resistance features next time I buy arrows...
"By reading cosmic ray fingerprints in zircon, we now have a new geological clock for measuring ancient processes on our planet's surface" ⚒️
phys.org/news/2026-01...
Some amazing footage (no cloud cover!!!!) from Subantarctic Heard Island captured a few days ago by members of the Australian science expedition.
#volcano #Antarctica #HeardIsland 🧪⚒️🌋
A photo of a calendar page hanging on a whiteboard. The top half features a stylized illustration with the title “Witness the birth of Earth’s Moon!” and “only in the HADEAN.” The artwork shows a red, rocky landscape with a hot air balloon floating above, referencing the Hadean Eon when Earth was young and the Moon had just formed. The lower half displays a monthly calendar grid for January, with dates arranged in rows. There are other posters and colorful stickers partially visible around the calendar.
My calendar is ready to go for the year. It is awesome, thank you!
#OreCup #copper is one of only two coloured metals ⚒️🧪
The iconic reddish color is due to a peculiarity in the transition of electrons between the 3d and 4s orbitals causing absorption of blue and green wavelengths and reflecting red/orange wavelengths. Also makes it a great electrical conductor.
Sunlight spills across a vast stretch of black sand, where scattered footprints lead toward the gentle shimmer of waves meeting the shore. To the left, green hills rise steeply against a horizon brushed with wisps of white cloud, while the deep blue sky arches overhead, streaked with light and warmth.
No flashy specimen pictures, just minerals by the billion - voting for #ilmenite in the ⚒️🧪 Ore Cup because it contributes to the awesome black sand beaches of #NewZealand 🇳🇿 . (PSA from personal experience: *always* bring footwear on a hot summer's day...)
buff.ly/ez1xDOJ
Always a big ⚒️🧪 fan of #copper. We use it for vacuum gaskets which we then give away to visiting school groups - they find it fascinating because although copper is everywhere it's rare to actually *see* it. There's probably a kilo or so of copper in your immediate vicinity.
It’s almost time!
We’re excited. You excited?
Monday 00:00 GMT. 24 hours a match. This is going to be FAST
Do you often see minerals attached to the fossils, or it just coincidental?
It's only allowed on the list if everyone promises the Tolkien Family Trust to pronounce it correctly.
S**t, did we forget to put mithril on the list of ⚒️🧪 critical minerals?!
buff.ly/122Ziq7
Sorry to hear that. Getting standard definitions is hard work. I've seen people almost come to blows over a definition (should it be a trough or a trench?)
I'm currently grappling with definitions of 'technique' compared with 'method' (or 'principle' versus 'procedure' if you follow the VIM...)
A coastal landscape featuring large, round boulders scattered across a gravelly beach. The boulders have smooth, weathered surfaces and vary in size, with some partially embedded in the ground. In the background, rugged hills rise under a clear blue sky, and sparse vegetation grows among the rocks and driftwood.
A rugged coastal scene with a tall, jagged rock formation rising from dark sand near the shoreline. Waves crash against rocky outcrops in the background under a cloudy sky. A person wearing a bright orange jacket stands at the base of the rock, highlighting its scale. Sparse tufts of grass grow on the sand around the formation.
Ward Beach in the northeastern corner of the South Island, New Zealand. A dramatic, rocky, wind-swept coast with concretions, the end of dinosaurs at the K-T boundary and sidling past grumpy fur seals napping amongst the outcrops... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Be...
A photo of a LEGO Ideas set displayed on a white table in a meeting room. In the foreground, six LEGO mineral models are arranged in brown square frames: a purple geode (amethyst), a cluster of blue crystals (fluorite), an amalgamation of several golden cubes (pyrite), red cubes arranged at different angles on a dark base (rhodochrosite), an orange crystal with a small nugget (tangerine coloured quartz), and a tall multicolored crystal (tourmaline). Behind them is the LEGO Ideas box showing images of the same crystal builds. The background includes chairs, tables, and part of a person standing near the box.
A great way to click together ⚒️🧪 #EarthScienceWeek2025 with a Lego speed build competition using the new 'Minerals' set of quartz, amethyst, tourmaline, pyrite, fluorite, and rhodochrosite. Pictures don't do them justice, they are quite spectacular in person. Alas, no #zircon - maybe in Set 2?
⚒️🧪 Great ShakeOut! Earthquake safety is not common knowledge in Australia where quakes are infrequent, but still potentially deadly. After a hefty M5.9 quake in 2021 that reached the Melbourne CBD, it was found only 3% knew what to do in a quake. Find out now!
buff.ly/PNGYgTa #EarthScienceWeek2025
I once described a period of low tectonic activity and peneplain development in a regional geological history as 'nothing much happened' to a prominent sedimentologist. I was promptly and permanently corrected.
Yes! I should have inserted a 4th step - a high school geography teacher that leaned strongly in the 'physical geography' of maps, landscapes and volcanoes part of the curriculum. Love a good map!
A rectangular wooden box filled with an assortment of rocks and minerals of various shapes, sizes, and colors. The stones include smooth rounded pebbles, jagged fragments, and polished pieces in shades of gray, brown, white, and green. Some rocks display layered textures or crystalline patterns. The box rests on a stone-paved surface. It wasn't actually this box because, sadly, it never occurred to me to take a picture of the box when it was still around. But it looked very much like this!
For #EarthScienceWeek2025: what 3 steps got you into ⚒️🧪 Earth Science?
1. A wood box full of rocks and crystals that my Dad had collected in his travels
2. David Attenbourgh's 'Life on Earth'
3. Couldn't make up my mind choosing a science major, so I did the (earth) science that does them all!
