Christina Belanger, Ph.D
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belaforams.bsky.social
Christina Belanger, Ph.D
@belaforams.bsky.social
1.7K followers 630 following 140 posts
Paleoecologist using the past to understand the future. Forams are the best! Associate professor at Texas A&M in College Station teaching about fossils and Earth’s deep past.
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belaforams.bsky.social
Beautiful deep sea #foraminifera
A collage of foraminifera found in a potential mining area with the New York Times article title “what scientists forum when a deep sea mining company invited them in” Same collage of deep sea foraminifera without the text. Large variety in morphologies and colors included.
December 6, 2025 at 7:56 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
“Today, humans and our livestock account for 98% of the world’s land mammals by weight, while wild land mammals are just 2%.”

Each box in the figure below “represents 1% of global wild mammal biomass on land.”
Graphic showing the relative biomass of different groups of mammals.
November 24, 2025 at 12:10 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
Figure from the paper displaying the contribution of coccoliths, forams, and pteropods to carbonate production, export, and burial in the sediments.
October 23, 2025 at 9:31 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
These later ended up in the Paleontology Research Labs at South Dakota School of Mines and Technology where they are in prominent display. Note is from the department’s 2010 newsletter.
News letter clip describing the donation of the models from the field museum and the baby shower the had for the juvenile. Three paleontologists clean the models with sponges. They are in the display window.
September 23, 2025 at 11:46 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
Reminds me of this classic
Jim Zachos holds a sediment core from the seafloor showing the red clay layer that marks the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a period of extreme global warming and ocean acidification around 56 million years ago. (Photo by Ira Block/National Geographic)
August 13, 2025 at 1:44 AM
belaforams.bsky.social
As seen in PRIs Daring to Dig, all about women paleontologists:
pri-gift-shop.myshopify.com/collections/...
Kids book illustration featuring a female paleontologist and her finds. Kids book illustration featuring a female paleontologist and her finds.
July 18, 2025 at 11:10 AM
belaforams.bsky.social
The suddenness of the rise seen via US Geological Survey data
Graph showing stream gage data rapidly rise in Kerrville from 1 foot to 36 feet in the early morning of July 4. Major flooding is considered anything above 20 feet.
July 6, 2025 at 6:58 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
A spider eating his lunch but still able to look back with demon eyes…. (from my unkempt yard/garden)
Black spider sitting on a blade of grass facing away from the camera where it appears to be eating a large katydid. On its backside a well positioned orange dot and two yellow marks give the impression of a screaming face.
July 4, 2025 at 10:17 PM
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Warming stripes will Bryan college station in foreground
June 19, 2025 at 12:16 AM
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That deer wants everyone to know fossil hunting is more fun.
Cartoon with man in hat and glasses in foreground holding a large mammoth tusk. Rock hammer bucket and automatic weapon on ground around him. In background tree line has deer breathing a sigh of relief.
June 18, 2025 at 10:29 PM
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Got my slides from MicroPaleoWorks today! Really nice quality and crystal clear numbers. Thanks @jennfehrenbacher.bsky.social
April 8, 2025 at 5:58 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
Feature article about #foraminifera
Bubbly artistic interpretations of chambered microfossils that appear inspired by foraminifera.
April 6, 2025 at 6:35 PM
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I dug up this rock in my backyard when I was 5 and believed to the point of panic that I had dug to China.
Angular black rock with large white angular crystals in it. It’s a basalt with feldspar, didn’t know that when I was 5. Looks vaguely like Chinese characters.
March 17, 2025 at 12:52 AM
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As my kid put it, it sounded like someone dumped rocks on house. 3 am wake up.
Hand holding a piece of hail with a golf ball for scale. The hail is slightly larger. Ground outside house lit by porch light covered in large hail.
March 15, 2025 at 8:36 AM
belaforams.bsky.social
The joys of H.E.B. on pi day
March 15, 2025 at 1:26 AM
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Picky predators on planktonic #foraminifera
Figure from paper in previous post showing different planktonic foram species shaded in a yellow to blue scale to depict the frequency of bioerosion on different parts to the shell.
March 13, 2025 at 2:36 AM
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Black and white image of a scruffy dog sitting in the middle of a life preserver that reads “Woods Hole”. It is captioned “Woofer the Tracer Dog.”
March 13, 2025 at 1:44 AM
belaforams.bsky.social
Rifling through old papers found my 12th grade career report. Got close given fossils totally count.
Cover of career exploration report on “professor of marine biology” dated 2001. Era appropriate sea star clip art also on cover. Table of contents of report also adorned with sea star clip art.
February 22, 2025 at 5:13 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
More about this climate art here:
stories.uea.ac.uk/a-climate-mu...
Section of mural painted in bold blues, greens, and reds looking like the sea crashing against cliffs. A tiny bolide falls from the sky on the left, a flag shows CO2 at 1000 ppm toward the middle and a primate skull appears in the cliff face on the right. Official caption: 66 million years to 3 million years ago: This panel stretches from the near extinction of the dinosaurs through the age of mammals, when temperatures and concentrations of the major greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, were much higher than today. The world was free of ice and sea levels were up to 70m higher than today. © Gennadiy Ivanov
February 20, 2025 at 12:35 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
Excited for Forams 2026 being in the US! I’ve never been to this conference despite being a #foraminifera fan.
Announcement poster decorated with images of forams. FORAMS 2026 JUNE 21–26, 2026 University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA USA 2ND ANNOUNCMENT & CALL FOR SESSION PROPOSALS! FRIDAY JULY 18 2025 Deadline for sessions, field trips, and workshops WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 1 2025 Abstract submission & conference registration open FRIDAY JANUARY 30 2026 Abstract submission closes FRIDAY MAY 15 2026 Conference registration closes Visit the FORAMS 2026 website for more information, to sign up for the mailing list, and submit proposals! Bit.ly/FORAMS2026
February 18, 2025 at 10:04 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
In my department at Texas A&M, we have cabinets full of fossils from past research. It’s a bit of a hidden collection and although I had students catalog what’s there, I’ve never opened all the drawers to see what we have. Here’s a look at the first drawer. We’ll see how far I get. #FossilFriday
Gray metal drawer with a mosaic of trays with fossils and loose fossiliferous rock slabs. Catalog labels indicate Ordovician trilobites, graptolites, and ostracods.
January 10, 2025 at 4:37 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
left: me, when someone passing me in the hall asks how I’m doing,

Right: how I wish it looked.
Cartoon Drawing of duck sitting on water with wings in air and eyes looking in different directions. Text says “I’m okay”. Cartoon drawing of cat sitting on a skateboard wearing sunglasses and holding a cocktail. Text says “Doing so good”.
January 10, 2025 at 12:26 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
First first-author paper by Paige Klug (Texas A&M MS 2024, now PhD student at George Mason)!

Shows how benthic #foraminifera can trace the unique histories of human impacts in different areas of a single estuary. Useful for environmental monitoring.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Plate from the mentioned publication with images of estuarine foraminifera, each from multiple angles to aid identification.
January 7, 2025 at 9:27 PM
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Can be differentiated from infaunal dog, which leaves a characteristic swirl in the substrate.
Balled up blanket on couch. Not visible is the small to medium sized dog that rolled herself up within it.
December 31, 2024 at 5:24 PM
belaforams.bsky.social
A core memory for me is finding my first fossil in a sandbox at the Nebraska State Museum and learning about sea urchins.

Museum educators: sometimes the 3-4 year-old really does keep their free fossil forever and advances beyond junior paleontologist. Thanks for all you do. #fossilfriday
Yellow paper Junior paleontologist certificate dated 15 November 1986 with a sea urchin spine taped to it. Certificate is filled out in child’s block letter messy handwriting with name of child (Christina) and name of fossil (sea urchin).
December 27, 2024 at 5:11 PM