Shawn W. Salley | Lightnews

Shawn Salley

@swsalley.bsky.social

120 followers 130 following 47 posts

Soil scientist in the Mesilla Valley & Jornada,
Soil Geography, Soil Change & Ecological Sites.

Videos

Environmental science 70%

Geography 17%

Posts Replies Media Videos

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Christina @cmgarton.bsky.social · Oct 7

I spend a lot of time searching for yarn substitutions because certain knitting yarns have the lifespan of fruit flies. Lately, I've noticed a HUGE uptick in fake websites for yarn companies. Usually, they're fronts for Amazon affiliates, but some of them felt more nefarious. 1/

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

HydrologyNL @hydrology.nl · Sep 20

Just trying out a few options. This is one of the same area. Two elevation models (1-m and 10-m resolution; you won't see the difference here) and two different legends.

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

HydrologyNL @hydrology.nl · Sep 19

Isaacks Lake in the Jornada Basin, New Mexico, and surroundings. Location: maps.app.goo.gl/W4D7g2sgNQ3r...

Shawn Salley @swsalley.bsky.social · Sep 9

Rio Grande environmental flows would reduce the sand flies and bitting midges. Bugs on the Rio above Mesilla Dam somehow get worse every year.

High Country News @highcountrynews.org · Sep 8

Powerful food interests in the West are putting profit ahead of the environment. @thefern.org

The Rio Grande’s pecan problem - High Country News

How Big Ag is threatening New Mexico’s water supply.

www.hcn.org

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

High Country News @highcountrynews.org · Sep 8

Powerful food interests in the West are putting profit ahead of the environment. @thefern.org

The Rio Grande’s pecan problem - High Country News

How Big Ag is threatening New Mexico’s water supply.

www.hcn.org

Reposted by Rebecca Tushnet, Stephen D. Murphy, Jutta Haider , and 3 more Rebecca Tushnet, Stephen D. Murphy, Jutta Haider, Paul Fisher, Brooke Harrington, Shawn W. Salley

Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · Aug 12

Modern AI tools emulate the classic con-man tricks of mentalism, tricking people into believing that they’re far more clever - and sapient - than they actually are.

Fantastic piece by @baldurbjarnason.com :

softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llme...

The LLMentalist Effect: how chat-based Large Language Models rep…

The new era of tech seems to be built on superstitious behaviour

softwarecrisis.dev

Shawn Salley @swsalley.bsky.social · Jul 26

Isaacks Lake in the Jornada Basin filled this week.
This is the 2nd year in a row it’s filled, after staying dry for over a decade. Photos looking east from the ground this year and the air last year.

July 2024 aerial view Isaacks Lake. By R. Baca JER

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Zoltán Sylvester @zzsylvester.bsky.social · May 23

What if you laid out all the meanders of a river along a straight line, so that you can break the river into straight-ish segments and fill arbitrary spaces? This is the Purus River in Brazil; you can see how it is getting wider and the meanders are getting larger in the downstream direction

The meandering planform of the Purus River (a tributary if the Amazon), shown as white wiggles on a black background. The width of the river and the size of the meanders are increasing downstream (top to bottom, left to right).

Shawn Salley @swsalley.bsky.social · May 22

This will be a really low water year. An irregation allotment of 6 inches means the Rio Grande will only flow through Las Cruces from May 31st to July 9th.

cdn.prod.website-files.com/602d7003504b...

Reposted by Fernando T. Maestre, Shawn W. Salley, Michala L. Phillips

Anthony Darrouzet-Nardi @adarrouzetnardi.bsky.social · May 16

Nice new paper out by @kristinayoung.bsky.social This was one of her dissertation chapters and some offshoot work from our fungal loop project.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Biocrust Mosses and Cyanobacteria Exhibit Distinct Carbon Uptake Responses to Variations in Precipitation Amount and Frequency

This study investigates carbon uptake in biological soil crusts (biocrusts) under varying precipitation regimes, testing pulse-response strategies in moss- and cyanobacteria-dominated crusts. The res...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

OpenTopography @opentopography.org · May 16

Nice example of the importance of illumination angle when making hillshade / shaded relief maps. The OT raster visualization tool allows users to make custom hillshades with control over the orientation of the light source (direction & altitude). Mulitdirectional shading is also worth exploring.

Screen capture of the OpenTopography Raster Visualization tool with parameters for control over hillshading highlighted.

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Tom Gill @tomgillpredicts.bsky.social · May 5

"A morass of airborne grit," writes the Gizmodo guy, in "El Paso Is Having Its Dustiest Year Since the Actual Dust Bowl." That's about right. gizmodo.com/el-paso-is-h...

El Paso Is Having Its Dustiest Year Since the Actual Dust Bowl

Drought, wind, and climate change are turning the Borderplex into a morass of airborne grit.

gizmodo.com

Reposted by Anping Chen, Shawn W. Salley

Bill Smith @wkolby.bsky.social · Apr 30

Excellent piece by @kristinayoung.bsky.social on the critical threat facing the USGS's Southwest Biological Science Center. We must rally and fight this senseless attack on science!!

Voices: Research on dust in Utah has never been more important. Trump’s proposed cuts put our economy and public health at risk.

“The loss of this science doesn’t just mean fewer data points,” writes Kristina Young. “It means fewer tools to protect water supplies, fewer insights to guide wildfire mitigation and fewer answers wh...

www.sltrib.com

Shawn Salley @swsalley.bsky.social · Apr 29

The Rio Grande started flowing today south of Elephant Butte reservoir.

waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-l...

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Colby Moorberg @colbydigssoil.bsky.social · Apr 28

The K-State Soil Judging Team is competing at the National Collegiate Soil Judging Competition in Stevens Point, WI this week. Today we saw four interesting soils representing some of the glacial soils of Portage County. #Soil #SoilScience #SoilJudging #SoilCats

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Tom Gill @tomgillpredicts.bsky.social · Apr 28

It looks like Mars again in El Paso. Tenth Dust Storm day of the year. One more to tie 1936 and the Dust Bowl. Attn @virginiagewin.bsky.social @wisc-satellite.bsky.social @aerosolwatch.bsky.social @psskow.bsky.social @sangasso.bsky.social et al.

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Tom Gill @tomgillpredicts.bsky.social · Apr 28

Another massive dust storm in the Chihuahuan Desert today. Every dust source from Lake Babicora in the S to Lake Estancia on the N (and maybe beyond them) activated. PM10 levels once again exceed pre-2025 records in El Paso. Over two hours of Dust Storm conditions already. Wind gust to 45 at ELP.

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Carsten W. Müller @cwmsoils.bsky.social · Apr 5

Our soil profile collection got a new mounting system. We’re getting the seminar room ready for the summer term #soilprofile @tuberlin.bsky.social

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Tom Gill @tomgillpredicts.bsky.social · Apr 2

Peak wind gust today at San Agustin Pass, New Mexico was 83 mph. #nmwx

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Tom Gill @tomgillpredicts.bsky.social · Mar 30

www.fastcompany.com/91307267/the...

The 1930s Dust Bowl is infamous in American history—and we could be heading for another one

Dust storms have been wreaking havoc across the country, and the mix of climate change and lax environmental regulations mean they're likely to continue.

www.fastcompany.com

Shawn Salley @swsalley.bsky.social · Mar 29

The Rio coming into Big Bend is moving at 500 cfs after spotty spring rain.

water.noaa.gov/gauges/CSTT2

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Jerome Juilleret @subsolum.bsky.social · Mar 28

📣⚠️ New article on Planetary Pedology !

We examine existing soil taxonomies and 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗼𝘀𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝘂𝗻𝗮𝗿 𝘀𝗼𝗶𝗹 𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗹𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 to support moon #soil mapping. 🚀🌕

📖 read more 👇

doi.org/10.1016/j.pe...

#LunarGeology #Astropedology #Moon #ISRU #Regolith
#Pedology #Mapping

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Tom Gill @tomgillpredicts.bsky.social · Mar 28

www.mentalfloss.com/black-sunday...

Black Sunday: When a Dust Storm Swallowed the Great Plains

Ninety years ago, the worst dust storm in American history blasted the Great Plains. The Dust Bowl had arrived.

www.mentalfloss.com

Reposted by Shawn W. Salley

Kristina Young @kristinayoung.bsky.social · Mar 24

With so much weighing on the scientific community right now, I find solace in the resilience of the natural world—like these beautiful biocrusts continually holding the desert together.

Shawn Salley @swsalley.bsky.social · Mar 21

Incredible. That’s a really low pressure reading.

Shawn Salley @swsalley.bsky.social · Mar 21

The recent storm was not as record setting, but still transported New Mexico’s soil out to the east coast.

Shawn Salley @swsalley.bsky.social · Mar 21

The second bomb cyclone came close to the Dodge City’s record. Which I think was on March 14, 2019; hit 974.7mb; generated 104 mph winds in New Mexico; and was lowest pressure in Dodge since 1878. 3/