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Reposted by Bill Lukens

David Ho @davidho.bsky.social · 1d

News that shocks no one: Carbon offsets do nothing for climate.

Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says

Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissions

www.theguardian.com

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 1d

The point of funding basic research is to push against our limits of science and technology. In the mid-1980s, quantum computers were science fiction. How many US institutions will be represented in Nobel awards 40 years from now?

🧪⚒️ #AcademicSky #NobelPrize

apnews.com/article/nobe...

Nobel Prize in physics goes to 3 scientists whose work advanced quantum technology

John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret and John M. Martinis have won the Nobel Prize in physics for research on the weird world of sub-atomic quantum tunneling that advances the power of everyday digital comm...

apnews.com

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 2d

That's a lot of quartz!

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 5d

This week my Sed/Strat class built deltas on the Em3 stream table. Today we converted a delta from river-dominated to wave-dominated using the wavemaker, and also played around with sea-level changes to observe retrogradation and progradation. 😎

tinyurl.com/26fe7tvr
🧪⚒️🪨🌊 #AcademicSky

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

tinyurl.com

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 5d

The Devonian Oriskany Fm. (quartz arenite with brachiopod molds) tightly folded, with the uppermost Devonian Helderberg Group (micritic/cherty limestone) in the armpit of the anticline.

Smokehole Canyon, WV

#FridayFold 🧪⚒️

Vertical layers of gray rock on the left and right, with the strata tightly folded in the middle of the image (forming a tight anticline). Green vegetation shrouds much of the outcrop, and the north fork of the Potomac River is visible in the foreground.

Same image as the first, with yellow lines tracing the fold and text overlain to indicate the location of the Oriskany Fm. and Helderberg Group.

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 6d

💥⚒️Come be my colleague/boss!⚒️💥

Academic Unit Head (AUH) of the JMU Department of Geology & Environmental Science in Harrisonburg, VA. Application review begins 11/02/25, position's open until filled.

Hburg & JMU are really great. Hit me up with Qs.

#AcademicSky 🪨⚒️🧪 #geology

tinyurl.com/4zx5rn8v

Academic Unit Head, Geology & Environmental Science - Harrisonburg, Virginia, United States

Working Title: Academic Unit Head, Geology & Environmental Science State Role Title: N/A Position Type: Instructional / Teaching Faculty Position Status: Full-Time FLSA Status: Exempt: Not Eligibl...

tinyurl.com

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 6d

What kind of mapping did you do? I'd love to hear about your methods!

Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 6d

Please send the geologic maps my way if you find them! I know nothing about this region and would love to learn.

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 7d

It's worth noting that this is river (the Kuiseb River) has a fun combination of characteristics: it's sinuous, ephemeral, and braided. Breaks the mold of simple, introductory concepts!

🧪⚒️🪨

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 7d

The 2025 Google Earth imagery is wild. We live on such an astoundingly beautiful planet.

Namibia (-23.6551610, 15.2430470). Close-up and wider view. In wide view: a structural dome popping out to say hello. Note the different eolian sediment compositions to N and S of the stream channel.

🧪⚒️🪨

Google Earth satellite image showing a sinuous, ephemeral (currently dry), braided stream that is pale gray with trees within the channel. Red eolian sands are to the south (bottom) of the stream, whereas folded, black bedrock mantled with light brown to tan sediment lies north (top) of the stream.

A red eolian dune field to the south (bottom) of a sinuous, dark line marking a stream channel. To the north (upper half) is a desert of variagated back bedrock and light tan sediment. There is a dome popping out of the ground, looking like an eyeball, in the middle, upper 1/3 of the shot.

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Reposted by Bill Lukens

Brian Schubert @schubertba.bsky.social · 7d

Could your drying method be biasing your oxygen isotope data? See our latest work in @pubs.acs.org Analytical Chemistry here: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Oxygen Isotope Bias Arising from the Drying Process of Nanocellulose: Implications for Studies Using Subfossil Wood

The oxygen isotopes (δ18O) from tree rings in living and subfossil wood provide valuable climate records across different periods, yet their climatic interpretation fundamentally depends on the accura...

pubs.acs.org

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Reposted by Bill Lukens

Dave Vanness @djvanness.bsky.social · 9d

A lot of people think that every international student admitted means one fewer spot for domestic students, when the opposite is more likely true - the tuition revenue international students bring allows public universities to provide substantial discounts to domestic students, improving access.

Nick Fleisher @nickfleisher.bsky.social · 9d

30% drop year over year!

Amid visa restrictions, international freshmen enrollment plummets at UW-Madison

This year’s number of international freshmen is the lowest recorded since at least 2015.

www.jsonline.com

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 9d

On my GenEd climate change exams, I include an open-ended question allowing students to tell me something they learned but didn't appear elsewhere on the exam. It's worth 5x any other question.

Nearly every student expounds on how cool they thought some concept was. #AcademicSky

Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 14d

It's the time of the semester where I start including silly questions in attendance polls for my GenEd class. Today's was just "How ya doin?"

65 replies of people saying lovely things. If you ask college kids a simple question, they show how kind and interesting they are.

#AcademicSky

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 9d

lol I've hear similar abject fear for the urban horrorscape of... Harrisonburg.

About once a year we get a cow running loose around town, preoccupying half the police force, and I have to laugh about the fact that we live in a "city".

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 10d

What in the world is up with these wild, incised meanders? They have about about 75 m relief with the surrounding terrace.

Iran might have the coolest geology on the planet.

28°06'02"N 59°59'17"E

#geology #geomorphology 🪨🧪⚒️

A satellite picture of gray-brown sediment with sinuous lines of tan to white wiggling across the screen from side to side, representing incised river channels.

A satellite picture of gray-brown sediment with a closeup of a sinuous line of tan to white wiggling across the screen from side to side, representing an incised river channel.

A dark gray landscape cross-cut by branches of light tan to white. Many branching, nascent stream channels with tiny tributaries flow from right to left, all cross-cut by wider, light gray to white, sinuous stream channels.

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 12d

Some action shots from today's lab: students surveying channel slope on the Em3 stream table, and the beautiful, swirled patterns of a meandering stream channel in disequilibrium. ⚒️🧪🪨

A group of geology students using a small, red ruler and silver cross-bar to survey the slope of a model river channel in a stream table. The stream table is an aluminum, boat-shaped basin with yellow, white, black, and red plastic grains.

Yellow, black, and white sediment grains forming swirled patterns of a meandering river model system.

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 12d

This week, my Sed/Strat class ran experiments with the Em3 stream table to test how a meandering river responds to a cutoff event. They submitted hypotheses ahead of time. They measured sinuosity & channel slope before & after cutoff.

Timelapse of the first group:
youtu.be/vm2JyJepKT4

⚒️🪨🧪

Meander Cutoff Experiment - 09/24/26

YouTube video by JMUSedStrat

youtu.be

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 12d

I'm rooting for a showdown between #kosmochlor and #curposklodowskite in the final.... but for now, #tugtupite has my full support.

www.mineralcup.org/2025/bracket

#MinCup25

Bracket — Mineral Cup

www.mineralcup.org

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Reposted by Bill Lukens

Dr. Jennifer Wade @volcanojw.bsky.social · 12d

For those anxiously awaiting it: the NSF GRFP solicitation is out, with a November 14 deadline for Geoscience applicants: www.nsf.gov/funding/oppo...

NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)

www.nsf.gov

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 13d

Biomarkers can preserve evidence of this phenomenon, weirdly enough. Such a novel combination - paleoseismology and organic geochemistry. 🪨

@callanbentley.bsky.social

pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/...

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 13d

list 3 things you can talk about for 3 hours with no prep

1. soils
2. paleosols (ancient soils)
3. the C3-C4 transition - could prob. use the full 9 hours for this

toth the raven, nevermore 🐦‍⬛ @thescrvnr.bsky.social · 13d

list 3 things you can talk about for 3 hours with no prep

1. James Joyce
2. Stroszek
3. soapmaking

Alasdair Stuart @alasdairstuart.bsky.social · 13d

list 3 things you can talk about for 3 hours with no prep

1. Single season ‘90s TV shows
2. Hamlet through the ages as an avatar for emotional repression and later the healing process of mental health.
3. The secret life of Jack Traven aka Johnny Utah aka John fucking Wick

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 14d

It's the time of the semester where I start including silly questions in attendance polls for my GenEd class. Today's was just "How ya doin?"

65 replies of people saying lovely things. If you ask college kids a simple question, they show how kind and interesting they are.

#AcademicSky

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Reposted by Bill Lukens

Brian Schubert @schubertba.bsky.social · 19d

Is it Gumbo Weather yet? @ullafayette.bsky.social

Gumbo weather is defined as 1st day w daily maximum temperature <70F.

Last year (2024) was latest in last 120 years. We had to wait til Nov 20! We are not hoping for a repeat.

Want to play along? Post your guess below!

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 15d

Breaking news: NASA reports rock older than universe itself!

😅🪨🧪

Breaking News For 𝕏 @breakingnews4x.bsky.social · 15d

Mars Mystery Unveiled: NASA’s 350-Billion-Year-Old Rock Sparks Hopes of Ancient Life in Red Planet Breakthrough open.substack.com/pub/eugenebn...

Mars Mystery Unveiled: NASA’s 350-Billion-Year-Old Rock Sparks Hopes of Ancient Life in Red Planet Breakthrough

By Eugene@BreakingNews4𝕏

open.substack.com

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Bill Lukens @paleosol.bsky.social · 16d

In my GenEd Climate Change exams, I include an open-ended question-worth a decent chunk of points-asking students to tell me something they learned but didn't appear on the exam. Most responses are very insightful.

Totally unrelated--it's striking how sloppy handwriting has become. #AcademicSky

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