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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 4h

Luton

Merriam-Webster @merriam-webster.com · 7h

What’s the word where you’re from that, when pronounced exactly as it looks, identifies a tourist immediately?

Reposted by Ian G. Stimpson

The Geologists' Association @geolassoc.bsky.social · 2d

The GA 2025 Annual Conference at Keele University is finally over after a weekend full of interesting and varied talks, displays and field trips.

Thank you to NSGGA - North Staffs Group of the Geologists' Association and everyone involved in organising and delivering such a packed programme!

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Reposted by Ian G. Stimpson

UNESCO International Geodiversity Day @geodiversityday.bsky.social · 2d

🥳 Happy Geodiversity Day!

⭐ As we celebrate with the theme 'One Earth, Many Stories', read this message from the new UNESCO Chair in Geodiversity and Geoconservation:

🌐 www.geodiversityday.org/post/unesco-...

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 6d

I gave my ‘how to build Planet Earth‘ lecture today. I noticed that the introductory slide made a jokey reference to Slartibartfast. Hitch-Hiker’s Guide was 1978 (even the film was 2005!).

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 8d

Dark red Namurian Chatsworth Grit bleached yellow by fluids (probably hydrocarbons) flowing through fault zones. Harston Wood, Froghall Wharf, Staffordshire Moorlands. ⚒️

Rock face in woodland.

Dark red Namurian Chatsworth Grit bleached yellow by fluids (probably hydrocarbons) flowing through fault zones.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 8d

Out doing reconnaissance for this Sunday’s Geologists’ Association @geolassoc.bsky.social annual conference field trip to the Staffordshire Moorlands.
Near-vertical calc-turbidities with an inverted olistolith of carbonate mudmound reef. Milldale Fm. Tournaisian. Brown End Quarry, Waterhouses. ⚒️

Quarry face with steep-dipping limestones and a large rounded block in upper right.

Near-vertical calc-turbidities with an inverted olistolith of carbonate mudmound reef.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 10d

P-waves from today’s (09:59:16 UTC 2025/09/28) M5.4 Türkiye earthquake recorded on my @raspishake.bsky.social seismometer in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. ⚒️🧪

Earthquake diagrams.
Map of wavepath from source to receiver, seismogram of vertical component of ground motion velocity and spectrogram showing frequency content against time.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 13d

… and its near twin M6.3 at 03:51:39 today (2025/09/25).

Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 14d

P-waves from yesterday’s (22:21:55 UTC 2025/09/24) M6.2 Venezuela earthquake recorded on my @raspishake.bsky.social seismometer in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England ⚒️🧪

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 16d

Start of my thirty-ninth year at Keele University.

First in the Department of Geology, then Department of Earth Sciences, then Earth Sciences and Geography, then School of Geography, Geology and the Environment, now School of Life Sciences.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

My ‘home’ for the last thirty-eight years - the ‘Will Smith’, a building actually named after two William Smiths, one the Father of Stratigraphy, the other an earlier cartographer and drawer of town plans.

My office is in the older, white part of the building to the left behind the metasequoia, the newer brick-faced part is on the right behind a low hedge.

The university still hasn’t replaced the single-glazed windows with metal frames, that don’t shut properly, in all that time.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 20d

P-waves from today’s (18:58:13 UTC 2025/09/18) M7.8 near east coast of Kamchatka earthquake recorded on my @raspishake.bsky.social seismometer in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. ⚒️🧪

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Reposted by Ian G. Stimpson

Gabriel Milland @gabrielmilland.bsky.social · 22d

Seems like quite a moment. This morning, the UK was powered entirely by low-carbon energy, it seems.

Yes it's windy and sunny. But it's still a milestone.

WillP @wiilp.bsky.social · 22d

We could have declared "100% zerocarbon" this morning when renewables+nuclear were generating 100% of UK consumption.

As usual this drove our price down, so exports up, and we had to run gas just to power the exports.

NESO set hard target that ZCO has to include exports as well as UK demand.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · 25d

P-waves from today’s (02:37:54UTC 2025/09/13) M7.4 near east coast of Kamchatka earthquake recorded on my @raspishake.bsky.social seismometer in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. ⚒️🧪

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Sep 7

Too small and too deep. I don’t think anyone even felt it.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Sep 7

P- and S-waves from today’s (08:49:14 UTC 2025/09/07) M2.6 earthquake 27km depth beneath Pontefract, North Yorkshire, UK recorded on my @raspishake.bsky.social in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England (about 100km southwest of the event) ⚒️🧪

$Earthquake diagrams. Map of wavepath from source to receiver, seismogram of vertical component of ground motion velocity and spectrogram showing frequency content against time. 08:49:14 UTC 2025/09/07 M2.6 earthquake Pontefract, North Yorkshire, UK$

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Sep 3

That first year strat course was a real roller coaster. Janet Watson on the Precambrian, Jerry Leggett teaching dynamic stratigraphy with the new fangled plate tectonics for the Lower Palaeozoic and then back to the old geosynclinal theory with Peigi Wallace for the Upper Palaeozoic.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Sep 3

She taught me Precambrian stratigraphy in my first year undergrad at Imperial. Yes, she was lovely and enthusiastic.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Sep 2

Team Stibnite. Antinomy sulphide. The old Greek name for the mineral “stibi” gave rise to the Latin “Stibium”, the former name of the element antimony (Sb). Sample from Baia Sprie, Romania. Cotton Collection, Keele University.

Black needle-like crystals of stibnite in grey gypsum.
Cotton Collection, Keele University.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Sep 1

Team chrysotile here. Back in the days of yore before health and safety had been invented, our A-level group used to learn mineral/rock id. at lunchtimes by selecting a random sample from a drawer, tossing it to someone who id’d it and threw it back. I recall chrysotile being one of those samples 😱

Mineral Cup #MinCup25 @mineralcup.bsky.social · Sep 1

#MinCup25 Round 1 Match 1: Hazardous (but useful!) #Chrysotile faces off against stunning gem #Pectolite. Do you pick the forbidden cotton candy, or the anti-pulverization beauty?

VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1...

Check RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2025/results...

Vote in Round 1 Match 1 — Mineral Cup

Click here to vote in Chrysotile vs Pectolite

www.mineralcup.org

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Aug 23

Blended approach here. Pre-field is digital (map prep, ‘airphoto’ interpretation, break-of-slope, lidar, etc) in ArcGIS. Mostly still paper in the field but with faircopy using ArcGIS with the British Geological Survey’s SIGMA overlay (but currently waiting on the new ArcGIS Pro version).

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Aug 14

Jeffreys basically caused a schism in UK geoscience that is still with us today, with Solid Earth Geophysics coming under the Royal Astronomical Society and Near-Surface Geophysics under the Geological Society of London. It costs me a bloody fortune every year to be a Fellow of both societies.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Aug 14

When I was an undergraduate I was set an essay following the increasingly desperate contortions that Jeffreys went through in the various editions of his ‘The Earth’ textbook as more evidence for plate tectonics emerged.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Aug 14

If it wasn’t for all the carbon dioxide locked up in limestones, we would have a greenhouse world like Venus.

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Reposted by Ian G. Stimpson

British Geological Survey @bgs.ac.uk · Aug 11

BGS has launched the UK Geothermal Platform, which provides national- to local-scale information on geothermal potential.

Geothermal technologies have the potential to decarbonise heating and cooling, supporting the energy transition to net zero in the UK.

www.bgs.ac.uk/news/new-pla...

An overview of geothermal energy potential for four geothermal technologies in Great Britain: Closed loop GSHP, open loop GSHP, hot sedimentary aquifer and deep geothermal, EGS granites.

Contains OS data © Crown Copyright and database right 2025, data © Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, 2025, data BGS © UKRI 2025.

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Ian G. Stimpson @hypocentre.bsky.social · Aug 10

P-waves from today’s (16:53:47UTC 2025/08/10) M6.1 western Türkiye earthquake recorded on my @raspishake.bsky.social seismometer in Newcastle-under-Lyme, England. ⚒️🧪

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