Tim Demko
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Tim Demko
@timdemko.xyz
Reposted by Tim Demko
8 January 1823: newspapers report on the first donation to Bristol Institution's new museum – a fine Ichthyosaurus communis from Lyme Regis, purchased for £50 from #MaryAnning by 9 of the Institution's members, including Henry De la Beche and William Conybeare who described Ichthyosaurus in 1821.
January 8, 2026 at 2:28 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
I've felt the exact same way, from thin sections, to outcrops, to satellite images, and satellite images from whole other planets. And it makes me impossibly sad that so many never have a chance to see such wonders. ⚒️
Galaxies and stories tucked away inside a rock. Geology feels like a tiny peep hole into secret land. It makes me think about snorkeling and feeling like you're spying on another world. What a privilege it is to be alive and to see the world on so many beautiful scales.
January 8, 2026 at 6:55 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Galaxies and stories tucked away inside a rock. Geology feels like a tiny peep hole into secret land. It makes me think about snorkeling and feeling like you're spying on another world. What a privilege it is to be alive and to see the world on so many beautiful scales.
January 8, 2026 at 6:50 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Susannah Maidmen presentation next week (Tuesday 13 January 5 -7 PM GT & 10-12 AM MT) online, via Zoom.
"Bizarre Dinosaurs from the Middle Jurassic of Morocco: Implications for Armoured Dinosaur Evolution". www.bilnas.org/event/bizarr...
Register in advance. us02web.zoom.us/webinar/regi...
Bizarre Dinosaurs from the Middle Jurassic of Morocco: Implications for Armoured Dinosaur Evolution by Susannah Maidment
The Middle Jurassic is a critical time in the evolution of the dinosaurs because it witnessed the radiation of many groups, giving rise to a diversity of familiar forms such as the plated stegosaurs a...
www.bilnas.org
January 8, 2026 at 5:13 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
“after magma ocean crystallization, bridgmanite may have stored an ocean’s worth of water in the lower mantle”
Experiments point to early Earth's mantle retaining a LOT of water through the magma ocean stage and into crystallization ⚒️
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Deep mantle clues to Earth’s watery beginning
Minerals in the lower mantle may store more water than previously estimated
www.science.org
January 8, 2026 at 1:42 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
The NSF National Geophysical Facility will be expanding support for near-surface geophysics. Your input can help shape future efforts for research and teaching with near-surface geophysics!

Please take a few minutes to complete this survey ➡️ https://loom.ly/tVEZXlE
January 7, 2026 at 7:20 PM
I rarely post photos of myself, especially in uniform, but the events of today are clashing mightily with the stupendous day I had in the field yesterday. Here I am, mid geologizing mode, waxing eloquently about some fascinating details of the 1.7 byo schist in the background. Must remember...
January 8, 2026 at 4:57 AM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Getting back into the swing of ungulates after a bit, here are four rhinos: Parvorhinus, Uintaceras, Megacanodon, Aprotodon qiui #paleoart #sciart
January 8, 2026 at 12:44 AM
Reposted by Tim Demko
A 1.78-million-year-old partial elephant skeleton found in Tanzania associated with stone tools may represent the oldest known evidence of butchery of the giant herbivores

www.newscientist.com/article/2510...

#fossils #paleontology
January 8, 2026 at 1:21 AM
Reposted by Tim Demko
A flower beetle in baltic amber. We hope to raise money for a museum microscope so kids can examine insect specimens like this one!
January 7, 2026 at 7:59 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Niche geology-potter content… a little three piece columnar basalt sculpture. Wild clay with a bunch of coarse nepheline syenite from Arkansas (late Cretaceous) wedged in. Hopefully the feldspars will melt out a bit in the wood kiln. They’re manganese bearing so I’m hoping for some dark streaks
January 7, 2026 at 6:49 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
New material of Ajkaceratops cements its identity as a ceratopsian, but adds a new wrinkle. It turns out that many european ornithischians previously classified as iguanodontians may actually be ceratopsians! New paper by @tweetisaurus.bsky.social et al., that I provided art for (link in reply).
January 7, 2026 at 5:44 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Out in @nature.com today, we shake up the ornithischian family tree. Remember those weird Late Cretaceous iguanodontians, the rhabdodontids? Well they're weird because they aren't iguanodontians. They're ceratopsians. Well, at least some of them are... www.nature.com/articles/s41...
A hidden diversity of ceratopsian dinosaurs in Late Cretaceous Europe - Nature
New results indicate that rhabdodontids and the previously described Ajkaceratops are actually distinctive European ceratopsians, a group better known from Asia and North America.
www.nature.com
January 7, 2026 at 4:57 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
A look back on every new dinosaur named in 2025: new-dinosaurs.tumblr.com/post/8048376... Which ones are your favorites? 🧪🪶 (📷Chinzorig et al., Hechenleitner et al., Zissoudisctrucker, Morais et al.)
January 7, 2026 at 7:10 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Details about the mistreatment of the paleontology program at Carthage College in Thomas Carr's own words:

www.wgtd.org/playlist/mor...
MS - Dr. Thomas Carr
Paleontologist
www.wgtd.org
January 7, 2026 at 8:14 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
This beautiful colour plate shows rock formations on the East Devon coast caused by landslips between December 1839 & February 1840. Corn grew on the rocks that had fallen from the fields above, attracting fascinated visitors.

📷 Reserve 554.235 DAW/XX (1840)

#OldRockDay #Geology #RareBooks #Devon
January 7, 2026 at 10:03 AM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Diprotodon and Genyornis from the Pleistocene of Australia will return in AVENGERS: DOOMSDAY.
January 7, 2026 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Scientists are uncovering dinosaur mummies in Wyoming that reveal what these animals truly looked like in life.

www.iflscience.com/wyomings-mum...

#fossils #paleontology
January 7, 2026 at 11:19 AM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Why not. Here's another fossil on a long Monday.

A juvenile Platycrinites from the Mississippian Mont Eagle formation of Alabama.
January 5, 2026 at 8:52 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
We have successfully drilled 200 metres of sediment core from beneath the ice sheet at Crary Ice Rise! The pipe is still spinning - with a bit of time up our sleeve, we’re not stopping drilling yet, as we continue to drill back through the geological archive hidden beneath the ice. 📷 Ana Tovey
January 6, 2026 at 1:20 AM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Amid all the other uproar, I have a new blog post out.
Ore from the former Alma Mine
The Alma pyrite mine and its neighbors dug into the hillsides of Leona Heights from the 1890s to the 1930s. The mineshafts have been covered up over the century since, so the fabulous veins of soli…
oaklandgeology.com
January 5, 2026 at 11:42 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
So exciting!! Tanya is an amazing person (I was SO fortunate to have her for plate tectonics during my time at UCSB). Her stories about going to sea before women were accepted on ships are 🤯 and she's an inspiration for seagoing women scientists.
The discovery that the continents are in continuous motion is fairly recent—dating back only to the late 1960s — and one woman was responsible for decoding what it meant for California and much of the West Coast.

buff.ly/2vAwspH
Drifters and the introduction of plate tectonics - High Country News
How the San Andreas fault and Tanya Atwater’s theory changed geology.
www.hcn.org
January 5, 2026 at 8:36 PM
Reposted by Tim Demko
You know what else bogs provide? Hundreds of Irish elk skeletons.
January 6, 2026 at 3:24 AM
Reposted by Tim Demko
Happy #MosasaurMonday from our newest Tylosaurus, Nolan. I'm still working on figuring out what species this one is, but more skull bones are being prepared every day.

This is most of the right lower jaw, just missing the angular. 3 feet long, which is quite large for the lower Niobrara 🧪
January 5, 2026 at 8:06 PM