Andrew Alden
@geology.bsky.social
Geology lifer
Author Deep Oakland: How Geology Shaped a City (Heyday)
Substack "Deeper Oakland"
Blogger at deepoakland.com
aboutgeology on Xitr for now
Webmaster, N. Calif. Geol. Society: norcalgeolsoc.bsky.social
Personal: andrewalden.bsky.social
Author Deep Oakland: How Geology Shaped a City (Heyday)
Substack "Deeper Oakland"
Blogger at deepoakland.com
aboutgeology on Xitr for now
Webmaster, N. Calif. Geol. Society: norcalgeolsoc.bsky.social
Personal: andrewalden.bsky.social
Reposted by Andrew Alden
What might be my favourite fossil has been just published by Kiat et al. 2025. Years ago I saw a pic of this Anchiornis specimen in nat geo article and I audibly gasped.preserving not only the feathers but also the original patterns as well. I made this drawing on the spot. Maybe its time to do v2.0
November 21, 2025 at 7:27 PM
What might be my favourite fossil has been just published by Kiat et al. 2025. Years ago I saw a pic of this Anchiornis specimen in nat geo article and I audibly gasped.preserving not only the feathers but also the original patterns as well. I made this drawing on the spot. Maybe its time to do v2.0
Hard as hopscotch
frankly not a given and a big relief nymag.com/intelligence...
November 19, 2025 at 6:01 PM
Hard as hopscotch
CHROMIITITE occurs in komatiite
so I've been playing around with AI (GPT), asking it how Pt-bearing sulfide layers form in layered intrusions. I asked critical questions, prompted it to think about physics, and after many iterations, it came up with this model. Utter nonsense, violating physics! Be very careful of AI.
November 18, 2025 at 5:30 AM
CHROMIITITE occurs in komatiite
Reposted by Andrew Alden
Fly along the San Andreas fault in Southern California in the Coachella Valley near Palm Desert and Indio. 🧪
November 16, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Fly along the San Andreas fault in Southern California in the Coachella Valley near Palm Desert and Indio. 🧪
The brightest aurora I’ve seen in NorCal. Photograph made along Dry Creek Rd. in Healdsburg, with the iconic Timber Crest Farms barn. #kentporterphotography @pressdemo.bsky.social #substorm #Auroraborealis #northernlights #CME
November 16, 2025 at 6:39 PM
Seems timely.
📣 New NBER Working Paper out today 📣
"The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct"
Sarah Cohodes & Katherine Leu
"The Consequences of Faculty Sexual Misconduct"
Sarah Cohodes & Katherine Leu
November 16, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Seems timely.
A deep plunge into the magnetobiogeochronological weeds. I care (and am entertained) because Oakland has a bunch of Campanian-age rocks.
Evidence for multimillion-year diachroneity of the paleomagnetically defined Santonian-Campanian stage boundary between its European stratotypes and Pacific Ocean basin localities | GSA Bulletin | Geo...
The recent and revolutionary decision by the International Union of Geological Sciences to formally define the Santonian-Campanian (Cretaceous) stage
pubs.geoscienceworld.org
November 15, 2025 at 7:42 PM
A deep plunge into the magnetobiogeochronological weeds. I care (and am entertained) because Oakland has a bunch of Campanian-age rocks.
Was listening to Kraftwerk and missed it
Did not feel, but my @raspishake.bsky.social did!
November 13, 2025 at 9:32 PM
Was listening to Kraftwerk and missed it
If they're banning @heydaybooks.com authors now, can my Deep Oakland be far behind?
November 13, 2025 at 9:31 PM
If they're banning @heydaybooks.com authors now, can my Deep Oakland be far behind?
Even science is tainted
November 13, 2025 at 3:33 AM
Even science is tainted
Bad science takes
JD Vance: "Science as practiced in its best form is that if you disagree with it, then you ought to criticize it and you ought to argue against it."
November 12, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Bad science takes
Wide-ranging survey of fiber-optics based seismology uses unusual words for a science paper: incredible, revolutionizing. SRL paper
Fiber‐Optic Sensing for Earthquake Hazards Research, Monitoring, and Early Warning | Seismological Research Letters | GeoScienceWorld
pubs.geoscienceworld.org
November 12, 2025 at 5:51 PM
Wide-ranging survey of fiber-optics based seismology uses unusual words for a science paper: incredible, revolutionizing. SRL paper
Interesting: deepduction fertilizes the deep lithosphere (i.e. upper mantle) just as regular subduction fertilizes the shallow lithosphere
⚒️ Article: Convective erosion and lateral transport of metasomatized continental keels may generate enriched mantle geochemical domains
@gernon.bsky.social @unisouthampton.bsky.social @ukiodp.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
@gernon.bsky.social @unisouthampton.bsky.social @ukiodp.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
November 12, 2025 at 1:11 AM
Interesting: deepduction fertilizes the deep lithosphere (i.e. upper mantle) just as regular subduction fertilizes the shallow lithosphere
Reposted by Andrew Alden
November 12, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Reposted by Andrew Alden
I’m pleased to share that a book I’ve coedited, *Landkeeping: Restoring Indigenous Fire Stewardship and Ecological Partnerships* is now available for preorder everywhere books are sold—including at the OSU Press website, where the promo code S26 will extend a 20% discount and free shipping to you.
Landkeeping
With rising temperatures, longer summers, drought, and more wildfires occurring in the United States and Canada, there is growing interest in the impact and efficacy of Indigenous fire and cultural bu...
osupress.oregonstate.edu
November 10, 2025 at 11:50 PM
I’m pleased to share that a book I’ve coedited, *Landkeeping: Restoring Indigenous Fire Stewardship and Ecological Partnerships* is now available for preorder everywhere books are sold—including at the OSU Press website, where the promo code S26 will extend a 20% discount and free shipping to you.
New blog post on one of Oakland's (actually Piedmont's) more dramatic rock quarries
Life and afterlife of the Dimond Canyon quarry
Park Boulevard sweeps through steep, rocky Dimond Canyon with just one isolated, incongruous building along the way: a big church in a space carved out of the cliff. That hole in the wall is a form…
oaklandgeology.com
November 10, 2025 at 5:25 PM
New blog post on one of Oakland's (actually Piedmont's) more dramatic rock quarries
Of Bay area geoscience student interest; why not rustle up (or brush up) a cool talk about your work for an upcoming NCGS meeting?
We are looking for students interested in speaking to our January 28 meeting (25 min w/Q&A). If you've got a talk in you, let us know this coming week (DM for deets)
November 10, 2025 at 12:56 AM
Of Bay area geoscience student interest; why not rustle up (or brush up) a cool talk about your work for an upcoming NCGS meeting?
Oil is the most Lovecraftian thing that actually exists.
You're telling me that there's a black ichor under the earth made from the ancient dead, whose burning can realize all the dreams of man, but only at the price of slowly returning the earth to its primordial state?
You're telling me that there's a black ichor under the earth made from the ancient dead, whose burning can realize all the dreams of man, but only at the price of slowly returning the earth to its primordial state?
November 10, 2025 at 12:18 AM
Distant earthquake just now (distant from oakland)
November 9, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Distant earthquake just now (distant from oakland)
Good thread for travel in general. Every guy should learn to iron, like my mother taught me.
#2025SVP travel advice: as soon as you get to your hotel room find the ironing board and iron and iron all your shirts and suit jacket, if you plan on dressing to impress. Hang everything up in the hotel closet and it will stay wrinkle free until you need it. Then go and hang out (or nap)
November 8, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Good thread for travel in general. Every guy should learn to iron, like my mother taught me.
Reposted by Andrew Alden
The bathymetry of eastern Lake Superior, the part that would be crossed by an ore carrier coming from the NW, trying to make Whitefish Bay in a storm, is fascinating. I have heard those N-S troughs explained as subglacially eroded tunnel channels, but there are probably other ideas out there.
November 7, 2025 at 1:14 PM
The bathymetry of eastern Lake Superior, the part that would be crossed by an ore carrier coming from the NW, trying to make Whitefish Bay in a storm, is fascinating. I have heard those N-S troughs explained as subglacially eroded tunnel channels, but there are probably other ideas out there.
Always more work to do in the Deccan. New estimates of K/Pg-era eruptive volumes push the huge majority of flood basalt into the Maastrichtian. GSA Bull paper, open access.
Spatio-temporal volume recalibration shows Deccan volcanism caused Terminal Cretaceous Mass Extinction | GSA Bulletin | GeoScienceWorld
pubs.geoscienceworld.org
November 7, 2025 at 6:21 PM
Always more work to do in the Deccan. New estimates of K/Pg-era eruptive volumes push the huge majority of flood basalt into the Maastrichtian. GSA Bull paper, open access.
Space has always been a place of dreams
This should be taken exactly as seriously as if Google was promising to reforge the shattered pieces of their ancestors' sword to fight the dragon beneath Mt. Rainier and reclaim the lost gold of the Dwarves.
Google's ambitious Project Suncatcher intends to deploy swarms of solar panel-equipped satellites in low-Earth orbit, each carrying AI accelerator chips designed for training, content generation, synthetic speech and vision, and predictive modeling.
November 6, 2025 at 7:08 PM
Space has always been a place of dreams