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stonegecko.bsky.social
@stonegecko.bsky.social
62 followers 48 following 220 posts
Geologist with an interest in stratigraphy, vertebrate palaeontology and geoscience education and outreach.
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Reposted
rgleadow.bsky.social
Reminder to Australians especially if travelling internationally “Anyone born in or after 1966 who has not had two doses of the MMR vaccine is eligible for a free booster” . www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...
Rise in holiday measles infections sparks health alerts in NSW, SA and Victoria
Cases of the highly contagious virus jumped nearly threefold in 2025 as immunisation rates declined
www.theguardian.com
January 5, 2026 at 6:43 AM
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andrejpaleo.bsky.social
Sediments and minerals self-organize and create a range of patterns which can be difficult to distinguish from biologically fabricated structures. This review brings significant advancement in understanding the deep time biospheres on Earth and elsewhere.
arxiv.org/abs/2601.00323
🧪 ⚒️ #Paleobio
Mineralization created patterns. Mineralization created patterns. Morphological diversity in Brooksella alternata and concretions from Weiss Lake locality.
January 5, 2026 at 8:23 AM
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olivertlord.bsky.social
🌍🪐 STFC funded PhD opportunity in Planetary Science @bristoluni.bsky.social

Choose from projects on:

1️⃣ Chondritic meteorites
2️⃣ Titan's atmosphere
3️⃣ The deep interior of Mars
4️⃣ Highly siderophile elements in the solar system

🕒 Apply by: 25 Feb 2026, 14:00 GMT
ℹ️ www.bristol.ac.uk/earthscience...
December 5, 2025 at 12:21 PM
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echinoblog.bsky.social
OH WOW! A whole web page DEVOTED to SPONGE SPICULE Imagery ! #porifera #spongeThursday www.spicules.org
January 1, 2026 at 9:36 PM
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arabellaspireship.bsky.social
Labradorite
January 3, 2026 at 1:03 AM
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egu.eu
Are you a #teacher looking for training opportunities in #geosciences or seeking #financial assistance for events that promote geoscience #education?

Apply now for the 2026 Field School for Teachers and Geoscience Education Event!
📆 31 December 2025: egu.eu/96EKUA

📸 Ole Zeising on #imaggeo
Image description: A woman wearing orange jacket using a shovel on a snowy landscape with a tent and mountain in the background. Test reads: ' Apply for a Field School for Teachers, or Geoscience Education Event in 2026!'
December 27, 2025 at 11:40 AM
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mhganser.bsky.social
Finally, we’ve solved a long-standing mystery: what tintinnid shells are actually made of:
A new class of biomaterial formed by remarkable structural proteins unique to tintinnids.
A major milestone after 3 years of work! Read about it in our preprint: doi.org/10.64898/202...
#ProtistsOnSky
December 27, 2025 at 10:30 AM
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nhmbryozoa.bsky.social
#FossilFriday Fine specimen of the problematical fossil Dickinsonia costata from the Ediacaran. On display at the South Australia Museum, Adelaide.
December 26, 2025 at 8:23 AM
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geologytime.bsky.social
Fluorite from Inner Mongolia is a highly sought-after mineral specimen among collectors

Video: zpeng1990
Zhu peng
December 24, 2025 at 2:00 PM
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jopabinia.bsky.social
End of year science thread: a few memorable papers that came out this year. Last year I didn't include any paleontology, but this time I'll start with a paper about early animal evolution that I absolutely adore, although I'm biased as a friend of the authors @egmitchell.bsky.social 🧪

1/7
egmitchell.bsky.social Emily Mitchell @egmitchell.bsky.social · Jan 22
Super excited that our review on the ecology of the Ediacaran-Cambrian transition is now out on how ecology changes across scales from organisms to communities to the world through time. Fab art @franzanth.bsky.social showing the build up of ecological complexity
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
December 22, 2025 at 5:47 PM
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rgleadow.bsky.social
Who’s going to make the gravy?

Makes me cry. Every. Year.
December 21, 2025 at 8:25 AM
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rgleadow.bsky.social
The cuts to CSIRO are terrible - worse than the Abbott era cuts. This is a stay of execution for 12 months. Time for lobbying. 🧪 #AusPol www.davidpocock.com.au/extra_csiro_...

@davidpocock.bsky.social
EXTRA CSIRO FUNDING WELCOME FIRST STEP
TRUST. INTEGRITY. LEADERSHIP.
www.davidpocock.com.au
December 17, 2025 at 4:48 AM
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euronews.com
"There is strong justification for continued optimism regarding the potential for extraterrestrial life," said one of the study's authors.
Ice layers, not ocean found on Titan, but hope for life remains
"There is strong justification for continued optimism regarding the potential for extraterrestrial life," said one of the study's authors.
l.euronews.com
December 17, 2025 at 8:26 PM
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phaneritic.bsky.social
Ever seen squishy in-situ grus? The granodiorite boulder I was standing on was severely weathered on the top, but very few minerals had eroded off. Instead, I think early Nov. rains made the clay (derived from decomposed feldspar) swell and stick other minerals crystals together. Even the enclaves!
December 14, 2025 at 3:13 AM
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brucedlittle.bsky.social
The EPA has removed references about humans causing climate change from its website.

No US government website can be trusted for science information.
December 10, 2025 at 7:52 AM
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fauxpinky.bsky.social
She has arrived...

Unicorn stone. A pegmatite composed of lepidolite, smoky quartz, Clevelandite, Rubelite tourmaline and (!) Indicolite tourmaline.
December 9, 2025 at 5:07 AM
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neilshubin.bsky.social
I'm thrilled to share the news that the original Tiktaalik fossils, including the Type Specimen itself, will be on display in Ottawa starting December 19! Check them out.

nature.ca/en/visit-us/...
🧪
Life onto Land: The Devonian - Canadian Museum of Nature
Special exhibition: visit Tiktaalik and other Devonian fossils of fishes from the Canadian Arctic, at the Canadian Museum of Nature, in Ottawa.
nature.ca
December 8, 2025 at 8:03 PM
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geoscientistmag.bsky.social
Cuts to geology programmes, departmental mergers and shrinking university support threaten the long-term health of the discipline. Now, Jan Zalasiewicz examines the developing situation at the University of Leicester: geoscientist.online/sections/vie...

#Geology #Geoscience #HigherEducation
Geology imperilled - GEOSCIENTIST
In recent years, universities across many western nations, including several in the UK, have closed Earth science courses and downsized their geology departments. The University of Leicester is the la...
geoscientist.online
November 26, 2025 at 4:08 PM
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drmeagantyler.bsky.social
"They’ve already struck an in-principle deal with T&F that all Australian and Aotearoa New Zealand university research published by T&F can be freely accessed by members of the public from 1 Jan 2026. This is kind of huge." Um, yeah it is! #highered #academicsky researchwhisperer.org/2025/11/25/l...
Librarians versus the world
Photo of London’s National Art Library by Sebastien LE DEROUT on Unsplash Here at the Research Whisperer, we love librarians. They are smart, dedicated people who want to help you with your researc…
researchwhisperer.org
November 28, 2025 at 6:26 AM
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amnh.org
This #FossilFriday, meet Dunkleosteus, which lived ~360 million years ago. Scientists think it was one of the first large jawed vertebrates in the ocean & was an aggressive predator. The bones in its jaws served as cutters, rubbing against each other like self-sharpening shears.
A photo of the skull of Dunkleosteus visible in profile. The animal has massive jaws and sharp bones inside which acted as shears.
November 21, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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badwolfgirl93.bsky.social
On this day 62 years ago, two curious teachers followed their mysterious young pupil into a junkyard, where they would find a police box and an old man with so many secrets...
November 23, 2025 at 8:54 AM
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stevetypesstuff.bsky.social
On my way to the @sedgwickmuseum.bsky.social tonight and in the Grand Arcade shopping centre I noted some lovely fossils in the floor: an ammonite in section showing the chambers and a belemnite in section showing the phragmocone.

#UrbanGeology
#fossils
An ammonite showing the chambers and body chamber in cross section. A belemnite in cross section showing the phragmocone.
November 20, 2025 at 6:01 PM
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tweetisaurus.bsky.social
Geology and palaeobiology at the University of Leicester are under threat, with at least 14 staff expected to be made redundant. Support them, their postdocs, and their students by signing this petition: c.org/SK8Xm8dhqK
Sign the Petition
Save Geology at the University of Leicester
c.org
November 19, 2025 at 11:31 AM
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sedhead402.bsky.social
Nice work!
vanhinsbergen.bsky.social Douwe van Hinsbergen @vanhinsbergen.bsky.social · Nov 15
This is the reconstruction that comes with our new Nature Communications Earth & Environment paper on Caribbean biogeography.

With Leny Montheil, Mélody Philippon, Franck Audemard, Lydian Boschman, Richard Wessels, Sylvie Leroy et al

#UtrechtPaleogeographicModel

www.nature.com/articles/s43...
November 15, 2025 at 2:33 PM
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🧪⚒️Just posted Keith Klepeis on how plutons form. He identified conduits, feeder dikes, and mushroom-shaped sheets that form as magma rises from the base of the crust to the upper crust. A tilted batholith in NZ provided him with a rare continuous exposure of 20 km of crustal section. #geology
Block diagram showing the internal components of the Misty pluton, which is one of the plutons of the Southern Fiordland batholith. A conduit rising through the lithospheric mantle feeds a sheet-like basalt structure, which in turn connects to steep-sided granitic bodies in the middle and upper crust (colored in mauve and pink). Schematic cross section of an active continental margin subduction zone, showing the dehydration of the subducting slab, hydration and melting of a heterogeneous mantle wedge (including enriched sub-continental lithospheric mantle), and crustal underplating of mantle-derived melts. Remelting of the underplate to produce tonalitic magmas and a possible of crustal melting are also shown. As magmas pass through the continental crust they may differentiate further and/or assimilate continental crust. Winter (2001) An Introduction to Igneous and Metamorphic Petrology, Prentice Hall Western coastline exposure of the deepest, lower-crustal level shows steep feeder zones and conduits where mafic, crystal-rich magma was injected into lower-crustal diorites. Most of the rocks in the feeder zone here are hornblendites, which are composed almost entirely of hornblende. The hornblendites are thought to be modified products of mantle-derived melt. Outcrop of fully-fledged dikes and thick pegmatites that occur away from the base of the Misty pluton. The coherent structure of the intrusion suggests the magma was emplaced into a fairly well-crystallized host capable of exhibiting brittle-like breaking. A crystal-rich host results from fractional crystallization and the progressive removal of the remaining melt. The horizontal alignment of the crystals suggests that the host mush has been compacted and enough melt has been removed to enable the crystals to align. At the same time, the undulose margins of the dike and the exchange of the dark hornblende crystals across its margin indicate that, although crystal-rich, the host was not fully crystallized and could still exhibit ductile behavior. This supports the general picture that as the host mush becomes increasingly crystal-rich as melts are gradually extracted, the dikes that move magma through the crystallizing mush become more organized and regular in shape. The dyke here is about 30 cm across.
November 13, 2025 at 2:24 PM