Maya Wei-Haas, PhD
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mayaweihaas.bsky.social
Maya Wei-Haas, PhD
@mayaweihaas.bsky.social
1.5K followers 430 following 220 posts
Science writer | Lover of rocks and rxns | Ex-National Geographic reporter | Words at NYT, Science Mag, Smithsonian, & more | Author of What a Rock Can Reveal | Follow for geology and weird happenings on Earth and beyond!

https://bio.site/mayaweihaas
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mayaweihaas.bsky.social
For anyone with kiddos interested in rocks and nature—I've got an event for you! I'll be at Bards Alley Bookshop in Vienna, VA this Saturday for an event with What a Rock Can Reveal! There will be lots of hands on activities and fun rocks and minerals to play with. I'd love to see you all there!! 🧪⚒️
The image is a poster featuring a picture of the author and her book, What a Rock Can Reveal. Details about the event are as follows: Reading and presentation with children's nonfiction author, Maya Wei-Haas. Saturday March 22, 11 AM, Bards Alley Bookshop, Vienna, VA. Free to attend, no RSVP required.
March 18, 2025 at 4:25 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
After a bit of a delay (oops!) here's your answer to the #fossilfriday challenge:

Drummmmm roooooolllll — the hidden fossils at the Santiago Municipal theater are ammonites!
March 10, 2025 at 1:53 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
A #Fossilfriday challenge: Can you spot the fossils? (As seen near the stairs at the gorgeous Teatro Municipal de Santiago.) I'll post the answer and a close up tomorrow morning! ⚒️🧪
March 7, 2025 at 11:43 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
Productive birthday day at #AGU24! Today was a day full of cratons, delamination, and rifts — oh my!

Now I’m fully saturated with science on the metro home. Off to sleep so I can do it all again tomorrow 😅
December 10, 2024 at 11:03 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
I love that the lost Island is a volcanic plug for 3 reasons:

1) columnar basalt is amazing (below are pics of Iceland volcanic plugs)

2) the "lost island" is supposed to be very old, so goes to reason it's had time to heavily erode, battered by the waves.

BUT my favorite reason is that ...
Person in the foreground wears an orange puffy jacket and points up to a tall mound made entirely of columnar basalt. The columns stick out in many directions, and the person is standing in front of a section where you can see the columns ends that are all arranged in a circle. An image of two volcanic plugs. You can see the basalt columns entirely make up the volcanic plugs. They form in all different directions making the sides of the irregular mounds look like they they almost are hairy. Each plug is fairly steep-sided and irregular. A river runs through the image in front of the two plugs.
December 3, 2024 at 8:22 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
THIS is the lost island! UGH I can't find a better pic, but in the theater you can clearly see the island is entirely made of tall columns of basalt. It looks uncannily like a volcanic plug! (ie magmatic plumbing left behind after the volcano's exterior erodes away). Urup island shown for comparison
The sky is a dusky purple-blue and the water is dark blue with streaks of bright turqoise, making it look a bit like it's glowing. On the horizon is the volcanic island. It's two very sharp peaks with steeps sides. The two peaks form a little bridge with a hole that's been eroded out of them. A small volcanic island shown. The island is basically a bundle of columnar basalts rising from the water. The sides are nearly vertical and taper to a very sharp peak.
December 3, 2024 at 8:14 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
But also, c'mon Disney! There coulda been AMAZING scenes w/ black, green, or pink sand! For example, Tuamotu atoll has pink sands from forams! Olivine has made Papakolea, Hawaii's gorgeous green sands. And don't forget black sand (image of NZ)!
📸JYO Shankar's blog, Big island guide, Petrina Darrah
Light pink sands are shown in this birds eye view of the beach. Two people look tiny in the middle of the image walking through the sand toward bright blue water. Olive green sand fills the horse-shoe shaped beach. The beach is surrounded by steep cliffs made of layered black basalt rock. The water is turquoise. Beaches full of black sand sit at the base of lumpy hills covered in vegitation. Image is a birds eye view, perhaps taken with a drone showing many miles of coastline. Fluffy clouds fill the sky. Image from: https://www.petrinadarrah.com/posts/black-sand-beaches-in-new-zealand
December 3, 2024 at 7:55 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
One feature I would've LOVED to see was different colored beach sand. Moana beaches were mostly white sands. I suspect it was a visual choice and OFC isn't strictly wrong. For example, Tahiti has gorgeous white sands from lots of crushed corals and bits of shells.
📸Left Moana, right Tahiti
Sail boats are racing to the white sand beaches of Moana 2. The water is crystal clear blue-green, and 7ou can see behind the beaches dark very sharp cliffs partially covered by green plants. People are gathered on shore to greet Moana's boat upon her arrival An image of the Vaiava Beach in Tahiti. You can see brilliant blue waters in the background and the white sand beach in the foreground. Greenery frames the image around it's edges. Image from: www.tahititourisme.com
December 3, 2024 at 7:42 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
In the very first scene of Moana 2, she's exploring a nearby island. And we see a cliff that looks very much like columnar basalt! In other places, this becomes a lot more clear. I'm working from whatever screenshots I can find so this is going to be a bit photo-sparse ... 😅
Moana vaults across a crevasse, image shows her in mid-air. On either side of the crevasse, you can see dark rocks that make up the walls. The rocks making up each of the walls looks slightly columnar, as you can see hints to hexagonal columns in the geometric break of the vertical cliffs. Another view of the cliffs once Moana made it to the other side. This image is almost the same as the last, but more of the cliff can be seen. In the background you can also see more of the blue water and a very pink sky.
December 3, 2024 at 7:34 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
Instead, in Moana 2 we're talking only volcanic islands. You are greeted with this concept on Moana's home island, the imagined Motunui. There, they've visualized obvious old lava flows entering the water, shown in the screenshot below. This is from Moana 1, but similar scenes are in Moana 2:
Image of moana with a pink flower tucked behind her ear, paddling a small canoe with her little pig in it. The canoe is skirting in front of a rough edge of dark rock that's supposed to be an old lava flow that entered the sea
December 3, 2024 at 7:28 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
If you're feeling down — just remember there's a mine in New Jersey with technicolor walls of fluorescent rocks. Throwback to visiting a slab from the Sterling Hill mine @natural-history.bsky.social while reporting a few years back! 🧪 ⚒️
(First two images are mine, 3rd is from AMNH/D. Finnin)
A slab of rock under normal light, when it looks "ordinary." It has speckles of grey, red, white, all running in diagonal bands. This is the same slab from the image before, but under fluorescent light. This light makes the rock look like it's technicolor. What were previously pale bands of grey, white, and red speckles are now neon green, orange, and red. Mixed among these brilliant bands are some specks of black, from the minerals that do not fluoresce. This is an image at a distance of the full slab under fluorescent light. The slab is quite large, probably about 10 feet wide and 5 feet tall. A person is standing in front of the slab for scale, but because the fluorescent lights are on, all you see is his black outline. His hands are on his hips and back to the camera as he looks at the slab.
November 26, 2024 at 3:40 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
The eruption is close to the geothermal power plant, and shortly before 08:00, the lava front also reached the hot water pipeline, the Njarðvík Line.

Info is from the Icelandic met office. More can be found here: en.vedur.is/about-imo/ne...
A closeup aerial photo of the eruption at night. The darkness of the ground stands in stark contrast to the glowing red/orange of the lava. The lava is fountaining from the crack in the ground, and the glowing red lava seems to be creeping across the surface. The cloudy sky flows red, reflecting the color of the lava.
November 21, 2024 at 1:47 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
Fast facts about Iceland’s eruption:

🌋The fissure is now about 3km (1.86mi) long—see the red line on the map below.

🌋the lava field around 7km^2 (2.7mi^2)—see red area on map below.

🌋 Lava crossed the road to the evacuated town of Grindavik at 4 am UTC
Photo: Civil Protection/Björn Oddsson 🧪 ⚒️
Photo shows the Icelandic eruption at night. The sky glows red from the lava, which is blasting from a long crack in the ground. The photo seems to be taken from a plane, which makes the eruption seem small, you san see the puddle of glowing red lava oozing around the fissure. Map of the affected area, showing the new lava flow. It is about 7 square kometers, and is flowing over much of the same area of Iceland already covered but the eruptions in 2023 and earlier this year. The map shows that the lava is a few kilometers away from the svartengi power plant and crossed the road into Grindavik
November 21, 2024 at 1:42 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
Post a picture you took (no description) to bring some zen to the timeline.
A series of sea stacks stand tall above the turquoise water. Hints of mountains can be seen in the background through the fog.
November 17, 2024 at 12:57 AM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
This is all to say: Imagine all the developments/discoveries we miss out on by excluding people and seeing them as the other. Finding this letter hit me in the gut—it didn't matter he was working and contributing to society. He was Chinese and the US thought there were too many of us here already
November 16, 2024 at 10:43 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
My grandpa was born and raised in Jamaica, the son of a Chinese shopkeeper. He got a scholarship to attend a good high school, which helped him get into a chemical engineering program at Louisiana State Univ. He continued on to MIT for his master's and stayed to work on a govt research project.
Same letter as described in the first message.
November 16, 2024 at 10:21 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
I'm w/my grandad this weekend and my mom found a letter he wrote in 1956 imploring a congressman for help staying in the US. Grandpa was born in Jamaica to Chinese parents, which meant the US counted him as part of the "Chinese quota." But the quota was full for several yrs.

Let me explain🧵
Image of a letter to the "Honorable Thomas O'Neill, in the house of representatives." The letter is from March 9, 1956 and here's a shortened summary: Dear Sir, it has been suggested to me by another congressman that I write to you in connection with a problem which now confronts me. I have studied in this country from 1949 to 1955 during which I received BS and MS degrees in Chemical Engineering from Louisiana State University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, respectively. During this past year I worked at MIT on a government research project and since February 1956 I worked at the Stone and Webster Engineering Corporation in Boston. I was born in Jamaica to Chinese parents. I now wish to be permitted to remain in my present job but I've been informed by the immigration office I cannot remain in the country after my student visas expire in August. Being Chinese by birth, I am automatically placed under the Chinese quota, which is filled up for the next few years. The remainder of the letter is requesting that Thomas O'Neill use his discretionary powers to remain in the country. He mentions there was a shortage of engineers in the US and so he was useful to the country. He states they've gone to great lengths with his company to figure out a solution and haven't yet found one so is sincerely requesting help.
November 16, 2024 at 10:08 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
There have been lots of other fun re-makes of the design over time. I'm particularly fond of the ones with full dragons who look like they're creeping down the sides of the jar Spiderman style—8 dragons total, one for each principal compass direction. The image origin is iffy, noted in the alt text.
This is an illustration of the seismoscope. It shows the full dragons on the jar. The precise origin of this image is uncertain, I found it posted on ZME Mag, but has no credit. Another bronze replica of the seismoscope. This one has the full dragons, not just their heads, and each one has a ball in its mouth. The dragons look like they are crawling down the sides of the jar like spiderman. Image posted to Researchgate by Lasse Amundsen.
November 14, 2024 at 5:58 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
Seismic waves cause the pendulum to swing, which forces the dragon to drop the ball into the gaping mouth of a frog below. The ping of the bronze ball signals a quake! The direction of the quake is shown by which dragon drops the ball. Chinese philosopher Chang Heng created the original in 132BCE🧵
This is a schematic of the process described in the tweet. This was from ISAAC Antisismica, but it's not showing up as listed on their website, so i'm not entirely sure the source of the image.
November 14, 2024 at 5:25 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
The world's first "seismoscope" (predecessor to the seismograph) looked more like an urn than a scientific instrument. But the key hangs at its center: a pendulum. An arm attaches the pendulum to each dragon, which holds a ball in its mouth

The replica below has a cutaway to show mechanics(1/2)🧪⚒️
A metallic urn or pot-like structure has dragons surrounding the design. Each dragon has a ball in its mouth and is poised over a frong with its mouth agape. A cutaway of the central jar-like structure is shown. It reveals a pendulum hanging at the center with an arm attached to each of the dragon heads.
November 14, 2024 at 5:18 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
Going through picture of a recent #iceland trip I guided for #smithsonianjourneys, and my gosh. I’ll never get over the arctic in fall. With fairly stumpy trees, ground cover does all the heavy lifting with colors. Throw in a sunset and the land looks like it glowing.
Sunset across the barren arctic landscape. The lands are mostly rocky with very few trees. The main plants are small shrubs and mosses that are all turning red, yellow, and brown in the fall. Anywhere the sun touches is brilliant rosy red. Another image of sunset in the arctic. Land here takes on a deep red color. A ridge rises in the background of the image, reflecting the erring sun. Bright blue water flows through a stream in the foreground. Water cascades in dozens of streams from the rocky wall at the stream edge. The water’s blue/white colors stand in stark contrast to the yellow, red, and brown of the shrubs. A little shrub (probably an arctic blueberry) with bright orange - red leaves.
November 14, 2024 at 2:48 AM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
One of my favorite spots in Iceland that's a little off the beaten track is Grjótagjá. It just feels ✨magical✨—it's also scientifically awesome. This region sits along the edge the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates, which are slowly pulling apart, creating vast tears in the landscape. ⚒️
A rocky cave partially filled with bright blue water that's stunningly clear. It almost looks like there's a blue haze over the bottom half of the cave because you can see all of the rocks and features of the cave floor through the water! A person in a black puffy jacket walks along a giant crack in the ground. the rocks on either side of the crack are tilted away, and the surface has grooves left from the flow of lava.
November 13, 2024 at 1:57 AM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
A little bright spot in the recent chaos: My book, What a Rock Can Reveal, made it on New York Magazine/The Stradegist's list of best new books for kids!

If you have any littles in your life who love rocks and nature, this would make a great gift! :) nymag.com/strategist/a...
A screenshot of the listing for the book in NY Magazine's story on the best new kids' books! The description reads: ‘What a Rock Can Reveal,’ by Maya Wei-Haas, Cost: $18," Then it has a short blurb with the following description: My kids are currently in their rocks-and-gems phase, and finding a compelling way to tell the story of how these specimens came to be can be challenging. In What a Rock Can Reveal, with almost tactile-feeling illustrations of gorgeous rocks and minerals by Sonia Pulido, Wei-Haas focuses on telling the story of Earth’s geology. She explains how a rock’s shape, color, and texture can give us clues about its own story. This is a great pick for a young scientist or any kid with an appreciation for nature."
November 11, 2024 at 9:34 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
I posted this on Twitter/X a while back, but it didn’t get much traction. Maybe it’s just me but I thought this wild to see, so I’m trying again here:

THIS is a lens from a fish’s eye, entirely made of collagen. Also look REALLY close — everything seen through the lens is flipped upside down!! 🙃
A clear marble-looking ball of collagen sits on the back of a man’s hand. He’s holding it out for everyone to look “through” the lens, you can see an image of the person behind on the lens but it’s perfectly flipped upside down. A closeup of the lens from the previous image. It shows the image of the man flipped upside down.
November 11, 2024 at 3:33 PM
mayaweihaas.bsky.social
Earthquakes in this area are common, though 6.8M is still quite strong. Cuba’s SE coast sits along the edge of the North American plate, which grinds westward against the Caribbean plate ~20 mm each year.
November 10, 2024 at 8:13 PM