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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 2h

Texting with my sisters, jumping back and forth over almost 60 years:

"We should go back to Organ Pipe Cactus this winter"

"Did we go there with the VW microbus?

"Yes, and we went to San Felipe in Baja California with it too."

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Reposted by Joe Mason

Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 3h

Doctor pronounces Trump "nephrologically prepubescent"

Reuters @reuters.com · 4h

Trump, 79, has "cardiac age" of 65-year-old, doctor says reut.rs/4mZNZbu

Trump, 79, has "cardiac age" of 65-year-old, doctor says

Donald Trump was found to be in "exceptional health" in a medical evaluation, the U.S. president's doctor said in a memo released by the White House on Friday, with his "cardiac age" 14 years younger than in "chronological age."

reut.rs

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 3h

Apropos of nothing, I was eating breakfast once with my 80+ yr old father, and he said, "You know when people see me they think I'm a lot younger than I am. They think I'm 65."

Then he looked at me like, yes I know this is bs, and you know too, but I'm having fun.

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 3h

That was this flight. Seattle to Denver, October 2017.

View from a plane of the Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole

View from a plane of the northern Wind River Range, Wyoming

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 4h

George Orwell in his Burmese Days

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 4h

I have run into guys who were getting hammered and wanted to fight in Wisconsin. Depends on the bar.

Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 4h

Some rob you with a sixgun, some with a fountain pen
Some kidnap your neighbors, friends and family
Some destroy the vital government services you depend on

tony romm @tonyromm.bsky.social · 7h

NEW: It looks like the number of federal layoffs -- so far -- is over 4,000, we've learned from court documents

www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/u...

White House Signals Federal Layoffs Have Begun During Government Shutdown

www.nytimes.com

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 5h

Or just hummocky glaciated terrain.

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 5h

the general impact on C emissions, the issues could be farming land with more runoff, carrying more eroded soil and nutrients, and probably loss of wildlife habitat. Not impacts on an aquifer. I do see expansion of irrigated High Plains cropland, but often much more scattered. Or expansion on dunes.

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 5h

One more thought: You've probably seen this atlas, www.ag-atlas.org. Less specific land use (cropland/noncropland) but more spatially explicit. When I look around with this I see hotspots of cropland expansion, mostly east of the High Plains, often on hillier, more erodible land. So there, besides

Agriculture Atlas | GLUE

www.ag-atlas.org

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 6h

I guess my point is, it's essential to look at where the change is taking place to understand its impact on groundwater, and that means a more careful look at specific areas with a better understanding of the geologic setting.

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 6h

Each of those and the aquifers farther east are their own stories in terms of depletion and water quality issues. Some much more serious issues than others. Also: Table 6 shows greater relative increase of dryland corn than irrigated in HPA counties. Makes sense, expansion to more marginal land.

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 6h

already irrigated). But much more blue farther east across the US. So why focus on the HPA? And the HPA outline (from USGS) goes too far in the east as well. The areas of blue in eastern NE are not on the High Plains Aquifer by any realistic definition (it's local glacial and valley-fill aquifers).

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 6h

A bit more on the article by Brown and Pervez: It's hard to see without being able to zoom in farther on Figs. 2 and 3, but there are patches of blue (more irrigation) across Texas, Kansas, and SW Nebraska. A lot look like they're at the margins of the usable HPA, which makes sense (best land was

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 7h

Actually 3:00-3:20 pm is a little early for an afternoon coffee. My preference is to not teach a class then, and wait until ca. 5pm, drink some coffee, and enjoy the wave of sleepiness as my brain overreacts. Has to be good espresso, though.

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 7h

"People should explore alternative energy sources like herbal teas, nutrient-rich foods, and drinks."

Okay, you teach my 3:30pm class without a cup of coffee...

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Reposted by Joe Mason

George Stanley @georgestanley.bsky.social · 13h

WI rarely imprisoned >3,000 for a century. Since adopting Truth in Sentencing, prisoner numbers have soared to 23,500. Many are over 60 w/ health care needs. Use of compassionate release could ease costs & crowding but just 5 of 63 cases were approved in 2024

wisconsinwatch.org/2025/10/wisc...

Wisconsin rarely grants compassionate release as aging, ailing prisoners stress systems

Increased use of compassionate release could ease costs and crowding with minimal risks to public safety, experts say. But it remains off limits to many prisoners.

wisconsinwatch.org

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 9h

Yes, I've seen that, and also couldn't get very far in it!

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 9h

As the quoted post says, Rachel Laudan's book is a notable early example of that, but it's also all through Rudwick's later massive tomes. I have to say I still often see the idea that it all began with Hutton and William Smith.

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 9h

Anything I say about these books or the earlier Part 1 list will probably draw *strong opinions* so I'll just limit it to: I wonder how many geologists (and nongeologists) are fully aware of the critique of the Anglocentric origin story first told by Lyell, that runs through many of these books?

Extinct blog @extinctblog.bsky.social · 15h

So, back in February I posted the first part of a reading list in the history of geology, intended mostly for people in philosophy and HPS who want to gain a footing in the subject. Here, 8 months later, is Part 2. (You can find the link to Part 1 within...)
www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2025...

A History of Geology Reading List, Part 2 — Extinct

In which Max has finally completed his two-part reading list for people interested in learning more about the history of geology

www.extinctblog.org

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Reposted by Joe Mason

Extinct blog @extinctblog.bsky.social · 15h

So, back in February I posted the first part of a reading list in the history of geology, intended mostly for people in philosophy and HPS who want to gain a footing in the subject. Here, 8 months later, is Part 2. (You can find the link to Part 1 within...)
www.extinctblog.org/extinct/2025...

A History of Geology Reading List, Part 2 — Extinct

In which Max has finally completed his two-part reading list for people interested in learning more about the history of geology

www.extinctblog.org

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 13h

I'll get back to you on this. There are some specific areas where irrigation has increased substantially on the HPA, coinciding with the ethanol subsidy. But the most noticeable areas of expanded irrigation are east of the High Plains, even just within Nebraska, also nationwide.

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 14h

(worth noting that the USGS maps include all of the NE panhandle in the High Plains Aquifer, but the Ogallala Grp is largely gone or thin over a lot of that area. They count the underlying much less productive Arikaree and White R groups as part of the aquifer.)

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 14h

So groundwater availability has always been limited. I would like to see a breakdown of irrigated vs dryland corn there. It's a bad policy for sure, but the impact on the High Plains Aquifer (and connected surface water) has been highly spatially variable in ways this map doesn't bring out.

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Joe Mason @moreorloess.bsky.social · 14h

Need some caveats on that map. A lot of the red in Nebraska is in the Sandhills where cropland is a pretty small fraction of the landscape, so total acres of new corn prodution are also small. A lot of red in Kansas and the Nebraska panhandle is in places where the Ogallala is thin or absent.

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