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Maria Box

@mariabox.bsky.social

140 followers 460 following 30 posts

PhD student at Northumbria University (UK), currently researching past climate in northern Mongolia. Generally excited by all speleothems great and small

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Nov 28

Intro post! I'm Maria, a UK-based PhD student interested in continental climates. In my current project I use stalagmites from northern Mongolia to reconstruct past environments and permafrost extent over the past 500 ka. I've also worked in central Aus and the west US! Nice to meet you, bluesky :)

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · 6d

Would definitely be an interesting case study! See if we can identify the English Civil War in a stalagmite?? Yet another wonderful application for speleothem-based reconstructions 🤣

Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · 6d

In the UK, it's not uncommon to find urban stalactites growing in old tunnels. However, in a 15th century battery running under #carlislecastle, I saw my first ever urban *stalagmites*. Complete with active soda straw drips above! (Larissa for scale)

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Reposted by Maria Box

Stuart Umbo @drumbo.bsky.social · Sep 8

Afternoon folks. I'm delighted to announce our manuscript "Speleothem evidence for Late Miicene extreme Arctic amplification" was published online today. Happy reading! @speleoseb.bsky.social @thomasopel.bsky.social cp.copernicus.org/articles/21/...

Speleothem evidence for Late Miocene extreme Arctic amplification – an analogue for near-future anthropogenic climate change?

Abstract. The Miocene provides an excellent climatic analogue for near-future runaway anthropogenic warming, with atmospheric CO2 concentrations and global average temperatures similar to those projec...

cp.copernicus.org

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · 29d

In my defense, this is a 5mm slab meant for analysis in another city, so it's very fragile. And I may be a bit stressed.

Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · 29d

Not saying I'm too attached to my samples, but today I tucked a stalagmite in

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Reposted by Maria Box

Jeff Melnick @melnickjeffrey1.bsky.social · Aug 1

"When the first of August came round, the Professor realized he had pleasantly trifled away nearly two months at a task which should have taken little more than a week."

--Willa Cather, 1925 and timeless

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Aug 2

Duddo Five Stones, first stone circle I've ever visited! They're made of soft sandstone and the deep vertical erosion rills betray the >4,000 years they've been standing

A sandstone megalith with deep vertical erosion grooves

Five sandstone megaliths standing in a circle

Reposted by Maria Box

Randall Munroe @xkcd.com · Jul 28

Geologic Periods

xkcd.com/3120/

Comic. [3-column table with headers Period, My Favorite Part, and My Biggest Complaint] [Row 1] P: *Precambrian*, MFP: Life develops, MBC: Snowball Earth episodes [Row 2] P: Cambrian, MFP: Trilobites!, MBC: Evolution could stand to calm down a little [Row 3] P: Ordovician, MFP: Earth might have had rings, MBC: Scary volcanic eruption in North America [Row 4] P: Silurian, MFP: First land animals, MBC: Earth’s newfound mold problem [Row 5] P: Devonian, MFP: Big mountains in Boston, MBC: Yeah, sure, what those giant killer fish needed was *armor* [Row 6] P: Carboniferous, MFP: Cool forests, MBC: Bugs too big [Row 7] P: Permian, MFP: Pangea, MBC: Google “The Great Dying” [Row 8] P: Triassic, MFP: Tanystropheus [dinosaur with extremely long neck next to tiny person for scale], MBC: Damage to Canada still visible from space at Manicouagan [Row 9] P: Jurassic, MFP: Birds, MBC: Parasitoid wasps [Row 10] P: Cretaceous, MFP: Raptors, MBC: Raptors [Row 11] P: Paleogene, MFP: Pretty horseys!!!, MBC: Paleocene-eocene thermal maximum [Row 12] P: Neogene, MFP: Forests of *Dracaena* Dragonblood Trees, MBC: Zanclean Flood [Row 13] P: Quaternary, MFP: Burrito invented, MBC: Whoever picked this name for the third period of the Cenozoic

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Reposted by Maria Box

Brian Groom @groomb.bsky.social · Jul 18

Newcastle central station, photo by Sally Ann Norman.

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Sayak Basu @sayakbasu.bsky.social · Jul 17

E-see you all the paleoclimate enthusiasts at our ICCP speleothem lecture series-July episode with @mariabox.bsky.social
Date & Time: 18th July, 16:00 KST
Zoom link: pusan.zoom.us/j/8213003163...

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Jul 15

Unfortunately the sample was found broken (it's from Mongolia, so ice-shattering is common). However, here's a best guess! (Plus, pic of the outside-- its not uncommon to see rippled speleothems in caves, but I never wondered how they'd look in cross-section).

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Jul 15

I always knew in theory that a speleothem is a sedimentary rock, but I've never seen a cross-bedded stalactite before 😂

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Reposted by Maria Box

Ashley Lynch ✂️🎞️ @ashleylynch.bsky.social · Jul 14

WeTransfer just changed their TOS giving themselves permission to train AI on any content you transfer and produce derivative works based on content you transfer that they are allowed to monetize and you are not allowed payment for.

Stop using WeTransfer.

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Jul 14

this website is wild... I'd say it's like the astrology of climate 'science', but astrology has more coherent terminology 🤦‍♀️ oh lord

Kelly Hereid @kellyhereid.bsky.social · Jul 14

Citizens, the state insurer of last resort in Florida, buys hurricane forecasts from *Global Weather Oscillations*????!?!?!

www.insurancejournal.com/news/southea...

Climate crowd will need a stiff drink to get through this FAQ: www.globalweatheroscillations.com/faqs

Florida Meteorologist Predicts Where the Next Hurricane Will Hit, For a Price

Colorado State University's hurricane research team, perhaps the best-known and most-often quoted forecasting service, last week revised its prediction

www.insurancejournal.com

Reposted by Maria Box

Seb Breitenbach @speleoseb.bsky.social · Jul 3

Read the latest on how ancient cave deposits warn of future permafrost loss! Kudos to a fantastic international team🦣 💪 @olakwiecien3.bsky.social @thomasopel.bsky.social @mariabox.bsky.social @pucicu.de @katharinehayhoe.com @northumbriauni.bsky.social

Oxford Earth Sciences @oxuniearthsci.bsky.social · Jul 2

Scientists have found evidence that Asia was free of permafrost all the way to the Arctic Ocean when Earth’s average temperature was 4.5˚C warmer than today. The results suggest dominantly permafrost-free conditions across the whole Northern Hemisphere during this time period.

A permafrost-free Arctic region when global temperatures were 4.5˚C higher than today

Taba-Ba’astakh Cliffs, Northern Siberia

www.earth.ox.ac.uk

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Jul 2

Last year, funds from @quaternaryra.bsky.social helped us reach Khuit agui, a spectactular cave deep within Mongolia's continuous permafrost zone. You can now read about the incredible things we found there in the latest edition of the Quaternary Newsletter: www.qra.org.uk/quaternary-n...

Inside a cave, a caver uses ropes to climb a steep rock face between ice waterfalls.

Beds of large hexagonal ice crystals inside of a cave.

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Jun 29

A δ-value of isotope geochemists? 🤔

ErrantScience @errantscience.com · Jun 28

It’s important to know the right collective noun for various people working in research and science

Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Jun 23

And this is why models suggest up to 99% of Mongolian permafrost loss by the end of the century 😢

Wonder whether such heatwaves happened in previous interglacials... with such a tight relationship btwn aridity and land temp in these climates, I'm sure our caves could offer some clues.

Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · May 24

@speleoseb.bsky.social turns out there's a great term for what we were talking about this week

David N. Thomas @dnthomas01.bsky.social · May 23

Here's and interesting Friday read:
Scientific progress thrives on collaboration & knowledge sharing, yet territorial behaviors in academia, which the authors call the Gollum Effect, threaten this foundation

Open access link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Systemic territoriality in academia: The Gollum effect’s impact on scientific research and careers

Addressing environmental challenges requires scientific collaboration, access to resources, and open knowledge exchange. However, possessive behaviors…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · May 14

Spent this gorgeous sunny weekend at an SRT training course in the Yorkshire Dales. SRT is how we access deep caves, such as those in northern Mongolia. Have to say the Yorkshire caves are a bit warmer!

Reposted by Maria Box

Permafrost Pathways @permafrostpathways.bsky.social · May 5

"The risks Arctic fires pose on local ecosystems and the communities that depend on them, as well as the destabilizing effect they can have on the global climate, require a rethinking of how fires will be managed in the future."
Powerful StoryMap from @gwandaii.bsky.social @gridarendal.bsky.social

The Arctic is on Fire

Raven, a young Gwich’in woman and firefighter from Inuvik, remembers preparing the local community center to welcoming fire evacuees from Old Crow, a fly-in community some 150 kilometers West of Inuvi...

storymaps.arcgis.com

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · May 4

May the 4th be with you and the Δ49 signal be acceptably low!

Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Apr 27

Used this gorgeous Sunday weather to go fossicking around Whitley Bay

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Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Apr 10

the tunnel in question. incongruous urban speleothems have to be one of my favourite things about the UK!

Maria Box @mariabox.bsky.social · Apr 10

found some delightful little stalactites and flowstone (tunnel bacon?) beneath a railway bridge this morning :)