Christine S. Lane
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chslane.bsky.social
Christine S. Lane
@chslane.bsky.social
910 followers 680 following 150 posts
Geography Prof of tephra at Uni Cambridge. Thinks & teaches about Quaternary environments, volcanic ash and field/lab skills. She/her. 🧪🌍🌋⚒️
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chslane.bsky.social
Fun finds in our sediment labs today. @camunigeography.bsky.social
Two people in lab coats in the foreground looking at a microscope screen with an image of a gastropod on it.
November 12, 2025 at 10:43 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Signs of a good day in the field with the Quaternary students from
@camunigeography.bsky.social
🌍
Two pairs of hands, palm up, brown with mud. One has a tap measure hanging on their wrist. The ground below is covered in autumn leaf litter and walking boots can be seen.
November 6, 2025 at 4:38 PM
chslane.bsky.social
This week with our 2nd year @camunigeography.bsky.social students we’ve been learning about varve lake sediments and what they’ve revealed about abrupt climate change. It’s been fun! Here is a peek at some diatomaceous varves in the Lake Chala cores from Kenya/Tanzania. Enjoy…
The surface of a split sediment core, with a cm scale along each edge. You can see about 8 cm of the core. The surface shows fine mm-scale to cm-scale laminations, which for the most are alternating light-dark couplets. There is a cocktail stick marking a ~1 cm grey layer, which is a volcanic ash deposit.
October 31, 2025 at 6:17 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Anyone else have happy feet today? 🍂
October 17, 2025 at 8:52 AM
chslane.bsky.social
Thank goodness for the @camunigeography.bsky.social first-year trip to Breckland. The best place to escape my avalanching inbox at this point in the term. Heading back happily tomorrow for round three…
🌍
An open lowland heath landscape with clumps of heather growing amongst hummocky grassland. There are a few nearby trees (including some tall Scott’s pines), a swathe of dried bracken, and forests in the distance. Sun has broken through the clouds. A few scattered backpacks can be seen in the foreground.
October 16, 2025 at 6:23 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Spent #fieldworkfriday in sunny Dartmoor extracting an exquisite peat sequence 😻
View from a grassy verge of an expansive peat bog. 50 cm of peat extracted into a drainpipe The dream team. Dan and Lauren enjoying the Dartmoor scenery. Granite boulders and smooth topped hills.
September 26, 2025 at 2:33 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Joined the first #Cambridge @kidicalmass.bsky.social this morning and those still-a-little-wobbly yellow legs were grinning all the way around. Thanks to the organisers and the patient folks who let us take up the sunny streets for a bit. #kidsonbikes #kidicalmass
@camcycle.bsky.social
September 21, 2025 at 2:45 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Yum! We’ve had 1000s of apples this year and have barely kept up. They’re earlies though, so nearly done. My go-to is @palaeostefan.bsky.social ‘s family (Dutch) appel taart recipe. Turned one out just 5 mins ago!
An unprofessional-looking (“rustic”) lattice-work cake in a round plastic tub.
September 20, 2025 at 4:39 PM
chslane.bsky.social
I often feel lucky with a 12 min cycle through Cambridge to work @camunigeography.bsky.social 🚲 🌍🚲
But I’ve just been in Aber and realise this seafront walk is the only commute I’d trade in for 🌊🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿
If you have an uplifting route to work, will you share it?
#beachlife #beattheratrace #Aberystwyth
September 19, 2025 at 3:59 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Here we were!
A group of ~30 people of various ages stood in front of an elegant blue building draped with flowers. They’re holding a banner with the logo and name of the “Integrating ice core, marine and terrestrial records” network on it.
September 17, 2025 at 6:10 PM
chslane.bsky.social
We’ve had two days of science in beautiful Cluj as the “Integrating ice core, marine & terrestrial environments” network met for an open meeting. Photos of past/present @camtephra.bsky.social members presenting their work and the birthday flowers they embarrassed me with. @jinheum.bsky.social
September 11, 2025 at 5:37 AM
chslane.bsky.social
[5/5] For any of the above, and more at @camunigeography.bsky.social , you’ll find details about how to approach supervisors and apply at www.geog.cam.ac.uk/postgraduate/
A stylised white and green image of a 4 story brick building, lots of sash windows and the word “Geography” overlaid
September 3, 2025 at 8:14 PM
chslane.bsky.social
[1/5] PhD recruitment season @camunigeography.bsky.social soon kicks off! If you’re interested in applying for a PhD in #tephra for palaeoclimate / archaeology / volcanology, consider applying to study in the Cambridge Tephra Lab @camtephra.bsky.social
🌋🌍☀️ Here we were at Mt Etna one year ago!
Six people in outdoor clothing stood posing in a row in a volcanic landscape. A peak (Mt Etna) can be seen in the background
September 3, 2025 at 8:14 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Visiting a friend from my @oxfordtephra.bsky.social days and here’s the cup my morning coffee came in! #tephratastic
August 31, 2025 at 4:31 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Serious holiday club envy this week. I’d like a few days around Wandlebury’s hill fort making dens and climbing trees please. Still, the drop-off strolls have been a nice way to bracket the days.
A sandstone Manor House with a clock on top, foregrounded by a meadow of dry freshly cut hay and a pond. Trees and blue sky reflected in the water. Dappled light through old trees in the hollow of a well worn ring fort.
August 8, 2025 at 10:30 AM
chslane.bsky.social
Our catmint earning its keep. I’m enjoying visits from our neighbourhood cats #caturday
July 5, 2025 at 8:15 AM
chslane.bsky.social
Last Tues we were celebrating @jinheum.bsky.social’s PhD viva 🥳
Many thanks to examiners @harrietallengeog.bsky.social @simon-blockley.bsky.social for your wisdom & support.
Jinheum also had a paper out [https://doi.org/10.1002/jqs.3730] & starts a postdoc in 2 weeks.
Congratulations Jinheum!
Three adults in a colourful restaurant smiling for the camera in a row. They look proud and relaxed.
June 24, 2025 at 8:13 AM
chslane.bsky.social
Q. Can I use my child as a scale in multiple lectures for the same module if they were taken 4 years apart?
May 16, 2025 at 5:41 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Ha! Those were the days!

Tell me, how far have you run for a rock?
⚒️🪨🏃‍♀️
A screenshot from FB that shows a younger Christine in running gear, by the Hemlock Stone in Nottingham, which is a tall sandstone outcrop, red brown at the base and blackened above. It’s behind an iron gate.
February 27, 2025 at 10:35 PM
chslane.bsky.social
In fact, why not cheer me up by sharing your favourite roadcut images…
Here are two of mine, both of which were on fieldtrips with the excellent @simon-blockley.bsky.social
Two figures walking along a cobbled road cut through loess cliffs Pyroclastic deposits forming a cliff alongside a cobbled road down to a German village with a church and white houses.
January 29, 2025 at 11:59 AM
chslane.bsky.social
I have sad reasons to review some nice book passages this week. Here’s one that always reminds me of being ridiculed for shouting “look at that rock!” far too often on many road trips…

John McPhee, Basin and Range (1980)
Photo of a passage from John McPhee’s 1980 book, Basin and Range: “Geologists on the whole are inconsistent drivers. When a roadcut presents itself, they tend to lurch and weave. To them, the roadcut is a portal, a fragment of a regional story, a proscenium arch that leads their imaginations into the earth and through the surrounding terrain”.
January 29, 2025 at 11:25 AM
chslane.bsky.social
The Cambridge Botanic Gardens Lights 2024 - last year we missed it because of high winds and it was definitely worth the wait.
December 15, 2024 at 10:19 AM
chslane.bsky.social
Getting soaked on the way into work was not the start I needed to motivate me for the final geography fieldtrip of term 🥾💦
Wet weather gear drying around a radiator beneath a window. Outside it is grey and raining hard. A flooded flat roof of a brick building, with a taller brick building in the background.
November 27, 2024 at 9:01 AM
chslane.bsky.social
Enjoyable afternoon at the Cambridge Centre for Climate Science Winter Symposium today. Especially nice to see recent MPhil graduates (now PhD students) Mengyao Du and Chung Yan Fu presenting their research.
Taken from the back - a shot of an auditorium with the backs of heads and a speaker at the front. Taken from the back - a shot of an auditorium with the backs of heads and a speaker at the front.
November 26, 2024 at 4:42 PM
chslane.bsky.social
Some Monday morning wonder at the simple things in life. Carbonate-rich clay under dilute HCl with sound effects by the Cambridge Quaternary Geographers. Sound on!
November 25, 2024 at 9:14 AM