Suvrat Kher
LightNews LightNews
banner
rapiduplift.bsky.social
Suvrat Kher
@rapiduplift.bsky.social
380 followers 120 following 170 posts
Sedimentary geologist dreaming of a himalayan home. Subscribe to my geology newsletter - https://rapiduplift.substack.com/
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
tnavinash.bsky.social
Today's haul. @mizoraman@biodiversity.social @rapiduplift.bsky.social @maitrey.bsky.social @mrajshekhar.bsky.social
November 1, 2025 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
helenczerski.bsky.social
Wow. I did not know that Alfred Russell Wallace (co-discoverer of evolution by natural selection) wrote a book in 1904 about the biological potential for life on other planets, and I've just found this extraordinary paragraph setting out the insanity of atmospheric pollution [1/3]. In 1904!
But the sketch I have here attempted to give of its varied functions shows us that it is really a most complex structure, a wonderful piece of machinery, as[ 259] it were, which in its various component gases, its actions and reactions upon the water and the land, its production of electrical discharges, and its furnishing the elements from which the whole fabric of organic life is composed and perpetually renewed, may be truly considered to be the very source and foundation of life itself. This is seen, not only in the fact of our absolute dependence upon it every minute of our lives, but in the terrible effects produced by even a slight degree of impurity in this vital element. Yet it is among those nations that claim to be the most civilised, those that profess to be guided by a knowledge of the laws of nature, those that most glory in the advance of science, that we find the greatest apathy, the greatest recklessness, in continually rendering impure this all-important necessary of life, to such a degree that the health of the larger portion of their populations is injured and their vitality lowered, by conditions which compel them to breathe more or less foul and impure air for the greater part of their lives. The huge and ever-increasing cities, the vast manufacturing towns belching forth smoke and poisonous gases, with the crowded dwellings, where millions are forced to live under the most terrible insanitary conditions, are the witnesses to this criminal apathy, this incredible recklessness and inhumanity.
October 31, 2025 at 1:20 PM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
The one on Sir John Mortimer remains my favorite.

@dlknowles.bsky.social

www.economist.com/obituary/200...
October 31, 2025 at 4:22 PM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
New Blog Post- There is a large difference between stratigraphic thickness and elevation in the Deccan Volcanic Province.

A quick look at lava stratigraphy and regional structure.

@peterbrannen.bsky.social

rapiduplift.substack.com/p/deccan-tra...
Deccan Traps: Thickness And Elevation
The total thickness of the Deccan Volcanics is more than 10,000 feet. But the highest elevation is 5400 feet. Why?
rapiduplift.substack.com
October 31, 2025 at 4:04 PM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
Latest Newsletter- The total thickness of the Deccan Volcanics is more than 10,000 feet. But the highest elevation is 5400 feet. Why?

A quick look at lava stratigraphy and regional structure.

rapiduplift.substack.com/p/deccan-tra...
Deccan Traps: Thickness And Elevation
The total thickness of the Deccan Volcanics is more than 10,000 feet. But the highest elevation is 5400 feet. Why?
rapiduplift.substack.com
October 31, 2025 at 12:02 PM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
"Oil companies don’t care about the first 40 meters of the core"

But archaeologists do.

Sumerian civilization may have been jump-started by the rise and fall of tides.

www.science.org/content/arti...
Sumerian civilization may have been jump-started by the rise and fall of tides
Millennia before the first cities, early Mesopotamians probably harnessed tides to irrigate crops
www.science.org
October 24, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
clasticdetritus.bsky.social
I was recently interviewed by @drlauraguertin.bsky.social as part of her 'Tales from the Deep' series focused on the people involved in scientific ocean drilling ⚒️🧪⛴️ –– lots of great stories from many others there to check out
archive.storycorps.org/interviews/i...
“I kept asking all these questions like, How do we know that? The other scientists [would respond] - Yeah, how do we know that?”
Virginia Tech sedimentologist Brian Romans knows how scientific ocean drilling can be a particularly good mechanism or vehicle for pivoting in a career – that’s because he has many examples to share a...
archive.storycorps.org
October 23, 2025 at 12:43 PM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
Such hyperbole reg enhanced rock weathering for CO2 removal.

Weathering of entire planet's surface rock removes < 1 Gt of CO2/yr

But < 1% of Deccan Basalt, which is a tiny fraction of Earth's surface, will remove all human generated CO2 (40 Gt yr! ) 🙄

Times of India, Oct 19.
October 20, 2025 at 10:25 AM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
davepetley.bsky.social
4,300 cubic kilometres! The scale of this ancient submarine landslide is hard to comprehend. Imagine a pile of rock 1 km wide and 1 km tall, extending from New York to Los Angeles. That would be a little smaller than this landslide.
christinebatchelor.bsky.social Christine Batchelor @christinebatchelor.bsky.social · 25d
Buried beneath Storegga is an even larger submarine megaslide - the Stad Slide!

Bridget Tiller’s new paper (the first of her PhD) reveals the vast extent of this slide, discusses its possible causes, and considers whether it could have caused a tsunami 🌊

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
Stad Slide: Preconditioning and failure of one of the world's largest megaslides
Submarine landslides can generate tsunamis and pose risks to underwater infrastructure, but a lack of direct observations of such slides hinders our understanding of their development and hazard pote...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 17, 2025 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
geologyjohnson.bsky.social
Oxidised (left) and unoxidised 3.2 billion year old banded iron formation. These samples are from drill core and were only a couple of meters apart. #geology #paleontology
Photograph of a human hand holding two long pieces of rock. The left rock has alternating layers of red, dark grey and light grey. The right rock has many fine undulating layers of alternating grey, green, and black.
October 15, 2025 at 7:34 PM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
Also, eukaryotes evolved during the Proterozoic.

How can that be boring?
allochthonous.bsky.social Chris Rowan @allochthonous.bsky.social · 26d
⚒️ The Proterozoic Earth had radically different ocean and atmospheric chemistry, was ruled by bacterial mats, and was possibly being shaped by not-plate-tectonics, or at least different-plate-tectonics.

Calling it boring is such a depressing failure of the imagination.
comptonscatter.bsky.social Compton Scatterbrained @comptonscatter.bsky.social · 27d
“That name, man,” Riedman says of the boring billion. “We’ve got to kill it. Kill it with fire.”

Gave me a smile to see they interviewed you about your work too.
October 16, 2025 at 3:52 AM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
The Geology of Mumbai- Megapolis Mumbai is firmly situated within the Deccan Volcanic Province. Yet, it has a distinctive geology due to differences in lava composition and tectonic setting. Add to that is a coastline shaped by Holocene sea level changes.

rapiduplift.substack.com/p/the-geolog...
The Geology Of Mumbai
Deccan Volcanism, West Coast Tectonics, and Holocene sea level change all make for a great story.
rapiduplift.substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
tnavinash.bsky.social
The state of education in India:

Government-run schools are underfunded, lack infrastructure and good teachers.

Private schools are now doing this 👇🏾

scroll.in/article/1087...
Dummy schools in India: how the focus on entrance tests is stunting education
Dummy schools and others that focus on training students for tests leave many ill-equipped to lead full professional and social lives.
scroll.in
October 11, 2025 at 8:55 AM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
angierasmussen.bsky.social
You heard it straight from Kennedy himself: Gold Standard Science is actually just data fabrication.
atrupar.com Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · Oct 9
RFK Jr on Tylenol and autism: "It is not proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof."
October 9, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
lokier.bsky.social
Our new #OpenAccess paper 'Sediment-stressed reefs over the past 420 Myr', led by Tanja Unger, has been published in The Depositional Record

Understanding natural and anthropogenic sediment influx to reef systems is critical to planning protection strategies
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...
October 9, 2025 at 7:19 AM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
tnavinash.bsky.social
Also added this book to the wishlist, given how educational Siddharth Kara's Cobalt Red was.

www.theariofrancos.com/extraction
October 8, 2025 at 8:48 AM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
Absolutely! I use these big ones as door stoppers.

#Cretaceous #Ammonoidea
Pic show a large ammonoid with traces of chamber walls being used a door stopper. Cretaceous, South India.
October 8, 2025 at 3:44 AM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
ketanjoshi.co
A complete flip of the usual pattern we see in these updates - China's and India's emissions fell, and EU and US emissions increased.....

ember-energy.org/latest-insig...

@ember-energy.org
Global CO2 emissions plateau Global CO2 emissions from the power sector fell marginally by 12 MtCO2 (-0.2%) to 6,963 MtCO2 in the first half of 2025. The decline was possible because solar and wind power exceeded demand growth and led to a slight fall in fossil fuel use. Without solar and wind growth, emissions would have risen by an estimated 236 MtCO2 (+3.9%) globally, which is equivalent to almost all emissions (251 MtCO2) from Africa in H1-2025. At the country level, there was significant variation. Among the four economies that account for the majority of global emissions (64%), emissions fell in China (-46 MtCO2, -1.7%) and India (-24 MtCO2, -3.6%), as clean electricity outpaced growth in demand in those countries. In contrast, emissions rose in the EU (+13 MtCO2, +4.8%), where strong growth in solar was outweighed by shortfalls in wind, hydro and bioenergy, leading to higher gas and coal generation. Emissions also rose in the US (+33 MtCO2, +4.3%), as clean electricity growth was smaller than demand growth, leading to an increase in coal generation, which was exacerbated by gas-to-coal switching.
October 7, 2025 at 7:31 AM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
susieoftraken.bsky.social
A frond of Phlebopteris, a 230 million year old fern from the Late Triassic Chinle Formation, New Mexico/Arizona.

#FossilFriday #FernFriday ⚒🌏🌱🧪🔬🌿
Phlebopteris frond on a grey mudstone, Late Triassic Chinle Formation, New Mexico/Arizona.
October 3, 2025 at 7:50 AM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
nicholasgladman.bsky.social
Sorghum really is a beautiful plant. Grain color and nutrient content are controlled by diverse gene networks.
Several sorghum grain heads sitting on top of a black box. The heads range in color from white to red to black.
October 2, 2025 at 2:01 AM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
carbon8.bsky.social
🚨New work🚨 led by Ph.D. student Dipesh Chuphal (IIT Gandhinagar), shows that the recent drying of the Ganga River basin is unprecedented in 1,300 years—more severe than historical famines. This ~multidecadal drying appears forced, but many models do not capture it. ☔️ 🌧️

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Time series of standardized streamflow anomaly for the Ganga River from year 700 to 2020 (derived from a hydrological model and from the Monsoon Asia Drought Atlas built from tree rings). The plot shows mostly balanced wet (blue/green bars) and dry (brown bars) years until the 20th century, when the black moving-average line dips sharply after 1990. The 1991–2020 mean (blue horizontal line) is well below the range of previous 1,300 years. Orange dots mark major documented historical droughts, but the recent drying is clearly the most severe. Observed changes in precipitation and temperature between 1951 and 2020. Spatial distribution of change in (A) annual precipitation (%) and (B) annual mean temperature (°C) between 1951 and 2020 based on the Sen’s slope calculation. Grids with statistically significant trends (P <= 0.05), based on the Mann–Kendall test, are highlighted with stippling. The Inset panels in (A) and (B) represent the interannual variability in precipitation anomaly (%) and temperature (°C) averaged for the Ganga River Basin (blue boundary). The total change in average precipitation and temperature over the GRB during 1951−2020, estimated using the Sen’s slope, is statistically significant (P-value <= 0.05) based on the Mann–Kendall test.
September 22, 2025 at 7:45 PM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
paleosol.bsky.social
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.
September 29, 2025 at 1:51 AM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
Paper- Terminal Cretaceous paleoclimate variability from the famous Mottled Nodular Beds of the Infra Trappean Lameta Formation.

These are a stack of calcrete occurring below the Deccan Volcanics in Central India.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
A Deccan Large Igneous Province related Maastrichtian regolith of Lameta Formation, Central India: Insights into the genesis and development of calcrete profiles and implications for palaeoclimate var...
Emplacement of volcanics of the Deccan Large Igneous Province in the late-Maastrichtian to early-Danian has been linked to global climatic perturbations and the related biotic crisis. Sedimentary seq....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
September 25, 2025 at 11:03 AM
Reposted by Suvrat Kher
helenczerski.bsky.social
It's never occurred to me that it IS an assumption. This is the most astonishing start to a paper I've read in years:

"Living organisms are assumed to produce same-species offspring. Here, we report a shift from this norm in Messor ibericus, an ant that lays individuals from two distinct species."
One mother for two species via obligate cross-species cloning in ants - Nature
In a case of obligate cross-species cloning, female ants of Messor ibericus need to clone males of Messor structor to obtain sperm for producing the worker caste, resulting in males from the same mother having distinct genomes and morphologies.
www.nature.com
September 24, 2025 at 5:26 PM
rapiduplift.bsky.social
Paper- Leaving no zircon unturned: quantifying the impact of handpicking sharply faceted detrital zircon on maximum depositional age analysis.

@clasticdetritus.bsky.social , maybe something for your sed course.

pubs.geoscienceworld.org/sepm/jsedres...
Leaving no zircon unturned: quantifying the impact of handpicking sharply faceted detrital zircon on maximum depositional age analysis | Journal of Sedimentary Research | GeoScienceWorld
ABSTRACT. Using the youngest detrital-zircon date(s) of a sedimentary deposit to constrain its maximum depositional age (MDA) is a widespread and growing
pubs.geoscienceworld.org
September 24, 2025 at 12:24 PM