John Andrew Higgins
@blueicedude.bsky.social
Professor, Department of Geosciences, Princeton University. I am a chemist interested in the history of the Earth as recorded in polar ice cores and the rock record. Views are my own and not my institution.
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
New research from John Higgins @blueicedude.bsky.social & Sarah Shackleton @princeton.edu, comments from Lidia Ferri, story by Mariana Mastache @deerenoir.bsky.social.
November 24, 2025 at 1:07 PM
New research from John Higgins @blueicedude.bsky.social & Sarah Shackleton @princeton.edu, comments from Lidia Ferri, story by Mariana Mastache @deerenoir.bsky.social.
⛺️ up! Drill down! Just another day in paradise looking for Earth’s oldest ice.
November 21, 2025 at 10:29 AM
⛺️ up! Drill down! Just another day in paradise looking for Earth’s oldest ice.
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
We've got a new record for the oldest air ever discovered. 💨
Scientists led by Princeton's @blueicedude.bsky.social and Sarah Shackleton uncovered air trapped in ice that is 6 million years old.
Scientists led by Princeton's @blueicedude.bsky.social and Sarah Shackleton uncovered air trapped in ice that is 6 million years old.
Scientists discover oldest air on record trapped in 6-million-year-old Antarctic ice
Scientists discover oldest air on record trapped in 6-million-year-old Antarctic ice
www.space.com
November 3, 2025 at 10:15 PM
We've got a new record for the oldest air ever discovered. 💨
Scientists led by Princeton's @blueicedude.bsky.social and Sarah Shackleton uncovered air trapped in ice that is 6 million years old.
Scientists led by Princeton's @blueicedude.bsky.social and Sarah Shackleton uncovered air trapped in ice that is 6 million years old.
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
🥶 Led by Princeton's @blueicedude.bsky.social and Sarah Shackleton, a team of scientists has discovered the "oldest directly dated ice and air" on the entire planet in Antarctica.
Six-million-year-old ice discovered in Antarctica offers unprecedented window into a warmer Earth
A team of U.S. scientists has discovered the oldest directly dated ice and air on the planet in the Allan Hills region of East Antarctica.
phys.org
October 29, 2025 at 7:30 PM
🥶 Led by Princeton's @blueicedude.bsky.social and Sarah Shackleton, a team of scientists has discovered the "oldest directly dated ice and air" on the entire planet in Antarctica.
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
The natural weathering of ALL THE ROCKS in the world removes almost 1 billion tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere every year. Enhanced rock weathering is an attempt to use a minuscule fraction of ALL THE ROCKS to remove many times more CO₂.
How spreading rocks on fields could combat climate change
‘Enhanced rock weathering’ is a simple, but also hard to measure, way of capturing carbon
www.ft.com
October 3, 2025 at 9:57 AM
The natural weathering of ALL THE ROCKS in the world removes almost 1 billion tonnes of CO₂ from the atmosphere every year. Enhanced rock weathering is an attempt to use a minuscule fraction of ALL THE ROCKS to remove many times more CO₂.
To be fair trilobites were around a lot longer than humans (250 million years give or take) and were wiped out in the by a great global catastrophe than has some parallels to anthropogenic climate change. They also preserve 😍 fossils. Not so niche to me!
Sometimes I think my food/climate stuff is super niche and then I see accounts that are like “I exclusively post about trilobites”
February 6, 2025 at 4:03 PM
To be fair trilobites were around a lot longer than humans (250 million years give or take) and were wiped out in the by a great global catastrophe than has some parallels to anthropogenic climate change. They also preserve 😍 fossils. Not so niche to me!
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
Today those of us funded by @NSF received this memo. Perhaps the most concerning statement: “Therefore, all review panels, new awards, and all payments of funds under open awards will be paused as the agency conducts the required reviews and analysis.”🧪
January 29, 2025 at 12:38 PM
Today those of us funded by @NSF received this memo. Perhaps the most concerning statement: “Therefore, all review panels, new awards, and all payments of funds under open awards will be paused as the agency conducts the required reviews and analysis.”🧪
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
Had a great visit to the summit of Mount Washington in NH this week to meet with Observatory staff & discuss science & education efforts we are working on together. Not a bad day for some windy weather as well! Peak gusts hit 86 mph. Check out this worthy organization! 🧪 mountwashington.org
January 25, 2025 at 9:40 PM
Had a great visit to the summit of Mount Washington in NH this week to meet with Observatory staff & discuss science & education efforts we are working on together. Not a bad day for some windy weather as well! Peak gusts hit 86 mph. Check out this worthy organization! 🧪 mountwashington.org
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
Could your next job be in Antarctica?
We're looking for carpenters, chefs, electricians, plumbers, plant operators and more to work at our research stations.
These are jobs like no other, in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
✅ Vacancies bas.ac.uk/vacancies
💡 Job alerts ow.ly/fWsu50UJHBP
We're looking for carpenters, chefs, electricians, plumbers, plant operators and more to work at our research stations.
These are jobs like no other, in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
✅ Vacancies bas.ac.uk/vacancies
💡 Job alerts ow.ly/fWsu50UJHBP
January 20, 2025 at 7:14 PM
Could your next job be in Antarctica?
We're looking for carpenters, chefs, electricians, plumbers, plant operators and more to work at our research stations.
These are jobs like no other, in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
✅ Vacancies bas.ac.uk/vacancies
💡 Job alerts ow.ly/fWsu50UJHBP
We're looking for carpenters, chefs, electricians, plumbers, plant operators and more to work at our research stations.
These are jobs like no other, in one of the most beautiful places on Earth.
✅ Vacancies bas.ac.uk/vacancies
💡 Job alerts ow.ly/fWsu50UJHBP
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
An ice and rock core drilled 2.8 km deep on the antarctic ice sheet may tell us about the climate record for 1.2 million years - and perhaps even info on the planet going back 2.8 million years.
www.sciencealert.com/oldest-unbro...
www.sciencealert.com/oldest-unbro...
Oldest Unbroken Record of Earth's Climate Pulled From Antarctic Ice Sheet
A colossal ice core sample drilled in Antarctica may contain the oldest, unbroken timeline of Earth's climate, stretching back more than a million years.
www.sciencealert.com
January 16, 2025 at 9:14 PM
An ice and rock core drilled 2.8 km deep on the antarctic ice sheet may tell us about the climate record for 1.2 million years - and perhaps even info on the planet going back 2.8 million years.
www.sciencealert.com/oldest-unbro...
www.sciencealert.com/oldest-unbro...
Agree!
Climate change is a factor in all of this but solely focusing on climate change frankly is lazy as it likely does not tell the whole story. The question is whether some of the fires were preventable. If this paper is correct, investigations on what ignited these fires are needed.
January 17, 2025 at 2:23 PM
Agree!
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
Super excited to share our latest on CO2’s role in geological climate change! Using boron isotopes in ~300 million year old brachiopod shells, we show that rising CO2 from volcanic emissions drove a profound change in climate that ended the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age ⚒️🧪🌊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Rapid rise in atmospheric CO2 marked the end of the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age - Nature Geoscience
A pronounced increase in atmospheric CO2 coincided with warming at the end of the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age, according to an 80-million-year-long boron isotope CO2 proxy record.
www.nature.com
January 6, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Super excited to share our latest on CO2’s role in geological climate change! Using boron isotopes in ~300 million year old brachiopod shells, we show that rising CO2 from volcanic emissions drove a profound change in climate that ended the Late Palaeozoic Ice Age ⚒️🧪🌊 www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
ICE-DAY! Cool layers & melt/refreeze features in ice cores extracted from Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica. We drilled thru ice to collect subglacial bedrock to determine the last time the bedrock was exposed to the sun using cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating. Also, a beautiful ice crystal! 🧪❄️
January 5, 2025 at 4:43 PM
ICE-DAY! Cool layers & melt/refreeze features in ice cores extracted from Thwaites Glacier, Antarctica. We drilled thru ice to collect subglacial bedrock to determine the last time the bedrock was exposed to the sun using cosmogenic nuclide exposure dating. Also, a beautiful ice crystal! 🧪❄️
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
Delighted to see that MBA Trustee Professor Rosalind Rickaby OBE FRS has been recognised with an OBE in the New Year's Honours List!
Ros has been honoured with this high accolade for her services to Biogeochemistry.
Ros has been honoured with this high accolade for her services to Biogeochemistry.
Professor Rosalind Rickaby OBE FRS -Research Committee | Marine Biological Association
Ros is Professor of Biogeochemistry, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, having received her PhD from Cambridge University in 1995 and studied
buff.ly
January 3, 2025 at 12:00 PM
Delighted to see that MBA Trustee Professor Rosalind Rickaby OBE FRS has been recognised with an OBE in the New Year's Honours List!
Ros has been honoured with this high accolade for her services to Biogeochemistry.
Ros has been honoured with this high accolade for her services to Biogeochemistry.
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
🧪🌋
Apparent mystery resolved : early 1800's global cooling was suspected to be cause by an unknown eruption. But it appears that such eruption has been identified.
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
Apparent mystery resolved : early 1800's global cooling was suspected to be cause by an unknown eruption. But it appears that such eruption has been identified.
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
The 1831 CE mystery eruption identified as Zavaritskii caldera, Simushir Island (Kurils) | PNAS
Polar ice cores and historical records evidence a large-magnitude volcanic eruption
in 1831 CE. This event was estimated to have injected ~13 Tg of...
www.pnas.org
January 2, 2025 at 3:15 PM
🧪🌋
Apparent mystery resolved : early 1800's global cooling was suspected to be cause by an unknown eruption. But it appears that such eruption has been identified.
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
Apparent mystery resolved : early 1800's global cooling was suspected to be cause by an unknown eruption. But it appears that such eruption has been identified.
www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
Do this especially if you’re at a place that can nominally afford to invest in creative folks with big ideas. Most academic institutions have a balancing act that doesn’t give a ton of flexibility on hiring (ie we have classes to teach), but some do! They should do better!
Invest in creative people who generate ideas and products. Most companies and academic institutions invest in the latest fad of ideas and fields. This guarantees that one will be chasing forever, never leading. Chase people, not fads.
December 30, 2024 at 5:02 PM
Do this especially if you’re at a place that can nominally afford to invest in creative folks with big ideas. Most academic institutions have a balancing act that doesn’t give a ton of flexibility on hiring (ie we have classes to teach), but some do! They should do better!
To all your ECRs out there….those who don’t do write reviews! Be a doer. 🧪!
December 12, 2024 at 1:11 PM
To all your ECRs out there….those who don’t do write reviews! Be a doer. 🧪!
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
Tim Lenton is a friend, and it saddens me that he found our perspective saddening rather than constructively critical.
But: despite his and colleagues efforts to “clarify what they meant by tipping points”, those efforts *have not worked* over the last 20 years, and we need to deal with that.
But: despite his and colleagues efforts to “clarify what they meant by tipping points”, those efforts *have not worked* over the last 20 years, and we need to deal with that.
Does talking about climate ‘tipping points’ inspire action — or defeat?
The phrase brings attention to the irreversible changes global warming might bring, but some scientists argue it's doing more harm than good.
grist.org
December 11, 2024 at 11:53 PM
Tim Lenton is a friend, and it saddens me that he found our perspective saddening rather than constructively critical.
But: despite his and colleagues efforts to “clarify what they meant by tipping points”, those efforts *have not worked* over the last 20 years, and we need to deal with that.
But: despite his and colleagues efforts to “clarify what they meant by tipping points”, those efforts *have not worked* over the last 20 years, and we need to deal with that.
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
So many drawers, each filled with treasures
December 5, 2024 at 11:33 PM
So many drawers, each filled with treasures
Sad to not be down in 🇦🇶 with @coldex.bsky.social drilling Earth's oldest ice, enjoying ⛺ life and the 😍 scenery. Congrats team!
December 5, 2024 at 8:08 PM
Sad to not be down in 🇦🇶 with @coldex.bsky.social drilling Earth's oldest ice, enjoying ⛺ life and the 😍 scenery. Congrats team!
Personally I have never found the ‘tipping point’ framework helpful for thinking about climate change or how society responds to it. Bob’s paper on this is illuminating.
In a new interdisciplinary Nature Climate Change Perspective paper, led by me, @lisgilmore and Rachael Shwom, we offer a critical perspective on #climate and social “tipping points.” 🎁: rdcu.be/d2gBC 🧵
‘Tipping points’ confuse and can distract from urgent climate action
Nature Climate Change - The tipping points framing is widely used in climate discussions but receives mixed feedback. This Perspective critiques it for oversimplifying the complexities of natural...
rdcu.be
December 5, 2024 at 12:31 PM
Personally I have never found the ‘tipping point’ framework helpful for thinking about climate change or how society responds to it. Bob’s paper on this is illuminating.
Reposted by John Andrew Higgins
Happy Isotope Day everyone! 🥳On this day in 1913 Nature published Federick Soddy's paper "Intra-atomic Charge" www.nature.com/articles/092... in which he introduced the term "isotope" (coined after a dinner conversation in Glasgow with Margaret Todd the classics scholar). how will you celebrate?🧪⚒️🌊
December 4, 2024 at 11:29 AM
Happy Isotope Day everyone! 🥳On this day in 1913 Nature published Federick Soddy's paper "Intra-atomic Charge" www.nature.com/articles/092... in which he introduced the term "isotope" (coined after a dinner conversation in Glasgow with Margaret Todd the classics scholar). how will you celebrate?🧪⚒️🌊