Came across this in a report at work

Washed up Echinoderm, currently identified as a sea lilly.

13/09/23 - Comasterini sp.

QLD:CQC - Woppa (Great Keppel Island), ocean shore

Such a pretty triangular rock

Everything is (Well) Illuminated

The South Polar layered deposits are icy layers that have been deposited over millions of years, preserving a climate history of Mars. In this image the layers are well illuminated to accentuate the topography.

A prior image of this location was acquired with the layered slope facing away from the sun, placing the layers in shadow. (The top of the cutout image is at a higher elevation.)

ID: ESP_058538_0960 date: 21 January 2019 altitude: 249 km

NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

I used to study these in a previous career! The polar layered deposits of Mars are really fascinating.

Muscovite thin section from mineralogy lab today

Twinned staurolite in thin section

If you have ever been tempted by a Paleozoic Pal, like a a stuffed trilobite or a full size eurypterid body pillow, now's the time to buy one, before they and a really lovely little museum are gone for good 😭😭😭

This was the museum I went to often in my childhood. I'm no longer able to visit unless I visit family, but this place holds a special place in my heart.

As stated in the article, they hold around 7 million artifacts- many of which are orphaned fossils, with the museum taking in collections that otherwise would have been trashed.

Please consider buying a Paleozoic Pal, but I'll also leave a direct donation link as well.

THE GIANT EURYPTERID BODY PILLOW IS BACK IN STOCK

Welcome back to Trilobite Tuesday! Pictured is a rare Bumastus graftonensis from the tan-toned Niagaran Limestone outcrops surrounding the Joliet Formation. This locale, near the small Midwestern town of Grafton, Illinois, is known for its three-dimensionally preserved trilobites. In certain Silurian locations, trilobites, like this one, emerge from their eons-old sedimentary encasements as little more than dull, dolomite-infused internal molds—specimens totally devoid of their calcite carapaces.

Basalt, XPL, 5x magnification

Here's some of the basalt that I've been finding all those lovely orthopyroxenes in. Really a spectacular sample!

It’s Fossil Friday! Let’s swim back in time about 85 million years to the Late Cretaceous to meet Xiphactinus, a gigantic predatory fish. This species could reach lengths of 17 ft (5.2 m) and was capable of swallowing a 6-ft- (2-m-) long fish whole! The Museum’s Xiphactinus fossils come from Logan County, Kansas, which is home to 70-ft- (21.3-m-) tall sedimentary formations. Though that might not sound like an ideal home for an ocean-dweller, the entire area was covered by a vast inland sea during the Cretaceous. See Xiphactinus in the Museum’s Hall of Vertebrate Origins!

Photo: Image no. ptc-6634 © AMNH  (taken 1996)

Gorgeous Yellow Calcite Crystals on Fossilized Shell From Rucks Pit, Florida, USA. Photo: Over the Moon Minerals

every time I talk about my mineral collection my boyfriend reminds me of the time he was helping me move and he made the suitcase full of rocks joke when he was unknowingly lugging around my literal actual suitcase full of rocks

@insane-sociopath you core

Once checked in some suitcases at an airport with some colleagues and when we lifted them onto the weigh scales and they registered up as insanely heavy, the attendant said “Good lord, what have you got in there? Literal rocks!?”

And we stood there and went “Yes. We’re all geologists” 🤣

Fantastic Octahedral purple green fluorite crystals From Jiangxi De 'an

Still feels weird that the same band made "You're Gonna Go Far, Kid" and "Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)"

It's like if Smash Mouth and Fall Out Boy were one band.

The Offspring are honestly a contender for the funniest punk band ever, made even funnier by the fact that Dexter Holland is pushing 60 now and has a PhD in virology.

Like imagine being on an academic committee and reviewing a dissertation on HIV protein-encoding genomes and it's from a guy with frosted tips whose greatest legacy is the Crazy Taxi soundtrack.

That's the Offspring.

The hook from "Come Out And Play" was created because Dexter Holland was doing lab work and did, in fact, have to keep certain petri dishes separated while disinfecting them. So he kept saying "gotta keep 'em separated" to himself while working, and it stuck in his head so badly that it made it into the song.

A role model for all of us indecisive people who want to do and try anything and everything.

We have already averted truly apocalyptic levels of global warming.

Yes, read that again. Let it sink in. This is what the science now says. We have already averted truly apocalyptic global warming.

To quote David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth, from his huge feature in the New York Times:

So we've already averted truly apocalyptic warming, and we've already cut expected warming IN HALF in just the past five years.

The pace of technology, of innovation, of prices, of feasibility, of discovery, of organizing, of grassroots movements, of movements in other countries around the world, have all picked up the pace so fast in the last five years.

Renewable technology and capacity are both increasing at an exponential rate. It's all S-curves, ones that look like this:

-via The Economist, June 20, 2024.

How much more will we manage in another five years? Another ten? Another twenty?

I know the US is about to fucking suck about the environment for the next four years. But the momentum of renewable energy is far too much to stop - both in the US (x) and around the world.

(Huge shoutouts to India, China, and Brazil for massive gains for the environment in renewables, and Brazil for massive progress against Amazon deforestation.)

We're going to get there.

Say it with me. We're going to get there.

Re: a couple people in the notes:

Some real talk for the new year, about where we now stand, and what the next years are going to look like. (Still ends on a "be hopeful or else" kind of note, but definitely gets into some heavy truths about the meaning of recent events.)

even with new administration, there were a lot of things already approved and in the pipeline for this year.

End of 2025, we should have 10x the offshore wind as we did at end of 2024, due to one project that broke the bottleneck for building.

The bottleneck was lack of a specific type of ship operating within US. It's currently working off Virginia. The prep work for similar project off Connecticut is currently underway, and as soon as Virginia is done, that ship switches up here. And is likely fully booked through 2030 with similar items.

The Regional Greenhouse Gas Intiative has been operating for 15 years, reducing co2 power plant emissions in new England and midatlantic. They did such a good job they hit their 2020 goals in 2018... and set new more aggressive ones for 2030, at least some members shooting for zero power plant emissions by 2030.

Thats 10 members, plus Virginia just joined so just starting that process Pennsylvania and North Carolina may join with next year or two, once legal challenges solved.

RGGI used model of taxing CO2 emmission via permit and permit auction money goes to direct utility assistance for low income folks, weatherization & energy efficiency to reduce demand, and green power projects.

Those green projects are all small, but lots of em. So no one big solar farm, it's 20 warehouses with solar panels. So invisible infill you don't SEE happening. But that's been chugging along for 15+ years and will keep going because it's a state, not federal, program.

Justice40 under the Biden administration prioritized historically undeserved and economically depressed areas for funding for climate resiliancy projects and green projects. It's been in place since 2017 so a lot of money assigned to it that's still working through system and all those will complete in next few years.

Trump could reprioritize how money for those programs is allocated, but it is a lot of very rural areas so he will get push back. Noooo, we need that money! And they do.

Since they're very poor and undeserved areas, it means you get a much bigger improvement vs better off areas. Swapping out a coal plant from 1940 vs one that upgraded in 1990 is a way bigger potential improvement!

The US military has been putting lots in alternate energy for last few years entirely due to security of being reliant on oil they have to get places, leaves supply lines vulnerable. So they will continue adding capacity for foreseeable future. And anybody complaining about it being "woke nonsense" can get told off about how many fuel convoys get struck in conflicts and how much better on-site solar and wind is than generator use.

So there's good things in process that likely can't be stopped. So even if us fed stopped new project funding entirely (unlikely), there's lots in process that will complete in next few years and continue building capacity.

Keep on your reps about it at the federal level, because msny will still go through. But don't forget to annoy state reps as well because they CAN keep on those smaller state projects and keep building capacity. And other states already did a lot of the work. These are proven technologies. Copy other states homework.

Thank you so much for the addition! It's super good to learn about some of these! And it's so true that there are SO MANY state and local projects underway, the vast majority of which the federal government cannot stop.

Solar is actually the cheapest energy source on the market, but the biggest barriers to transitioning to solar are the high initial cost of building solar farms and the limited places solar farms can be incorporated into our electric grid (in the US). Many red states are actually involved in the solar transition, not so much because they value renewable energy but because having a town solar farm does have a lot of economic value (you’re not reliant on one energy company and electric bills go down). We will make the green transition one way or another and renewables are on track to be cheaper than fossil fuels!!

this guy's beef got old enough to have geology

Item: did you know that if you leave beef broth in a bottle long enough you can grow Beef Crystals

The group this was posted in has been advertised to me several times on FB, and I think it's important to know where it's from- the group is called Dull Men's Club (gender neutral though, their rules explain the name was kept from the I think 80s when they started and had separate groups but anyone that believes in and agrees to abide by their rules can join).

The group's major conceit is only this: finding joy in ordinary (see: dull) things.

And they often do

God, I love weird people, MY people

no banana for reference 😔

Guy whose about to figure out eating 50,000,000 bananas is a lethal dose of radiation: mm im so full from 49,999,999 bananas but one more

I also love the implication that he either did not notice the building radiation levels or wasn't affected until the second he finished the 50 millionth banana

Guy whos skin is falling off from acute radiation syndrome: man this hurts like shit but surely has nothing to do with the 49,999,999 bananas ive eaten so I should be fine to have one more