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Nick Barber 🌋

@volcannick.bsky.social

1.7K followers 900 following 700 posts

Asst Professor, geoscientist, volcanophile magma, metals, and minerals 🌋🪨🛰️Philadelphian 🦅, father, husband. he/him. www.volcannick.com Opinions my own

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · Jun 27

I know the world sucks right now, but for the next week I’m going to be exclusively posting about my trip to Geneva for #IAVCEI2025. I’m presenting a poster on Thursday, and looking forward to a week of fun and cutting edge volcano science.

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Sarah McLaughlin @sarahemclaugh.bsky.social · Jun 18

POV: you're a baseball and this is the last thing you see

klye schwarber outside a wawa pointing at a delicious iced beverage

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pork, cheese, broccoli rabe @garlicbuffalo.gobirds.biz · 3d

the only reason the defense looked like shit in the 4th was because the offense wasn’t playing complimentary football

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 3d

Refs were bad but boy were we asking for a loss like that. Offense needs to wake up. Hopefully this is the jolt they need

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Adam Rawnsley @arawnsley.bsky.social · 4d

C'mon, boys

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 4d

Uni administrators seem to follow cues from their peers - hopefully this sets a new trend!

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Dr. Kenna Harmony Rubin @kennarubin.bsky.social · 4d

In this time of US federal gov't shutdown, let's remember that public funding (NSF, NOAA, ONR) made that view possible. Fieldwork is often unpredictable, humbling, exhilarating and unforgettable.. and necessary in so many science disciplines. (3/3) 🧪🌊🌋

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Reposted by Nick Barber 🌋

Dr. Kenna Harmony Rubin @kennarubin.bsky.social · 4d

🧪🌊🌋 Many scientists have a single field moment that changes how they see their work. Mine is in this video clip. What’s yours?

Video source is in the clip - see more below (1/3)

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 5d

Good news for those following the egregious suspension of Dr Dixon at UNC - he’s back in the classroom! You can read his update here.

www.change.org/p/reinstate-...

We have been successful in defeating this attempt to suppress my free speech. This was always an issue that threatens all of us. I'm deeply grateful to the many people who leapt courageously to this struggle. In challenging this suspension, my goals were twofold: most urgently, to return to my classrooms and continue the important work of critically examining the world and our relationship to it with my smart, thoughtful, and curious students. Secondly, I wanted to disabuse UNC's leaders of the notion that they can infringe on our constitutional right to speak and assemble as we choose.

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 5d

I was actually in the proximity of Ringgit last year! My colleague and I have published a a bit about on centers like Ringgit. A lot more to think about for sure….

Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 5d

It would be cool to look at whether these earlier collision pushed certain phases, like micas or garnet, to stabilize at shallower depths than usual. Could explain why you get those alkali rich shoshonites in this collisional terrane.

Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 5d

This isn’t a novel insight or anything, it’s just crazy how strongly these lithospheric signatures can make themselves known in modern arcs!

Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 5d

What I find so interesting is how in Java for instance, the alkali volcanic centers (not true shoshonites) erupt a mere 10 km or so behind the main call-alkaline modern arc.

So even in proximity to totally normal subduction, we get this syn-collisional melting signature.

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 6d

More on my shoshonites - Bawean is less than a million years old yet it’s hundreds of km from the arc front and 600 km above the Sunda slab.

Studied early on the 20th century, I was the first to look at these rocks in decades.

They have gorgeous textures. Still don’t know why they are there!

Clinpyorxen flomercryst in XPL in Bawean thin section

Map of Bawean with respect to rest of Java arc - Bawean is in the upper right in green. Slab depth contours marked.

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 6d

I started my PhD looking at shoshonites from the Indonesian back-arc: a Quaternary aged island called Bawean.

Significance is complex but generally: 1) silica deficient, highly alkali enriched implying 2) connected to deeper melting regions 3) atypical tectonic associations

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Robert Mahon @bedform.org · 6d

its this part
"If universities sign and then violate the terms of the compact, they could be forced to return any money given to them by the federal government that year as well as any private contributions." 👀

Stay in line OR ELSE

AAUP chapter @UT Austin @utaustinaaup.bsky.social · 7d

www.wsj.com/us-news/educ... UT Austin is one of the 9 schools offered a deal: accede to White House demands and get funding priority

Exclusive | White House Asks Colleges to Sign Sweeping Agreement to Get Funding Advantage

An initial round of nine schools is being asked to sign a wide-ranging accord.

www.wsj.com

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North Carolina Conference of the AAUP @ncaaup.bsky.social · 7d

UNC CH Chapter & NC AAUP statement re Prof. Dwayne Dixon: @aaup.org

AAUP NC and UNC-Chapel Hill AAUP condemn the egregious violation of Professor Dwayne Dixon's First Amendment rights to free speech and free association, his Fourteenth Amendment right to due process, and his academic freedom. 1/

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Ted McCormick @tedmccormick.bsky.social · 10d

If you don’t teach your students your subject, you’re not doing your job.

If you teach your students to ask AI first, you’re ensuring they’ll never be *needed* for any job.

You’re also guaranteeing that knowledge of your subject slowly dies.

Asking ChatGPT is gaining neither knowledge nor skills.

matt94250.bsky.social @matt94250.bsky.social · 10d

If you don’t teach your students how to use AI, you’re doing them a huge disservice because they won’t have jobs in the future.

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 10d

Dang these are nice!

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 10d

I wonder if USGS folks would want to run workshop, where they invite the community to resolve some of these problems. Alaska Volcano Observatory did something like this.

I’d love to know about any mapping issues in the Blue Ridge near me. Would make for low hanging fruit for student research!

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 10d

I bet making these big national maps the USGS teams could fill a hard drive with project ideas -clarify this boundary, resolve this disputed classification, etc etc.

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 14d

Nothing like light beer to take the edge off 90% humidity. Cant wait for fall to actually arrive

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Penny Wieser @pennywieser.bsky.social · 15d

The only other interesting thing to say - these textures were originally intepreted as co-crystallization of Opx and Ol. But it becomes apparent with thin section scans the Opx are large oikocrysts, enclosing rounded olivines.

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Nick Barber 🌋 @volcannick.bsky.social · 15d

I got my copy! Cant wait to read!

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Thea Riofrancos @triofrancos.bsky.social · 15d

Today is publication day!

EXTRACTION: The Frontiers of Green Capitalism is officially out with @wwnorton.com - find it at a bookstore near you or order online💚📚 wwnorton.com/books/978132...

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Penny Wieser @pennywieser.bsky.social · 15d

Excited to share my new open-access paper looking at magma storage depths for these beautiful xenoliths from Mauna Loa Volcano. doi.org/10.1007/s004... 🧵below, TLDR - previous suggestions of ~20 km deep Opx crystallization are inconstant with fluid inclusion depths and thermodynamic modelling.

Whole thin section scans in cross polarized (XPL) and plain polarized (PPL) light. a) 48g comprises two large orthopyroxene oikocrysts; one at the top left showing brown colors close to extinction, and one at the bottom right showing creamy-white colors. b) shows the same scan in PPL. c) 48i comprises a single orthopyroxene oikocryst at extinction. In contrast, olivines show a variety of interference colors. d) Same scan in PPL. e) 79a comprises one major orthopyroxene oikocryst (brown), with two smaller oikocrysts attached (blue). The two insets compare the rounded nature of the olivines inside the xenolith with the more euhedral shapes of those on the outside. These defined crystal faces may have formed during renewed growth in the carrier melt during transport or may have avoided the dissolution reaction. f) in PPL, cleavage can be seen showing a constant direction across large regions of the xenolith.

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