Matt Kuchta
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mkuchta.bsky.social
Matt Kuchta
@mkuchta.bsky.social
Professor of Geology at UW Stout. Views I write are my own, not my institution’s. He/him/his.

Making science education easier and more accessible one demonstration at a time.

Frangit Patriarchia
Was at ground zero for true geography nerds today
October 12, 2025 at 2:16 AM
How gneiss…
October 10, 2025 at 9:22 PM
“In the path of destruction” by Richard Waitt (2014) is perhaps the most comprehensive and the one I would start with.
October 6, 2025 at 8:49 PM
Follow the Saturday evening tableau with the panic and chaos of Sunday morning.

The raw emotional hit when comparing O’Keefe and Baker, who made it away from the blast, and the Rollins’ station wagon sitting crushed under fallen trees just half a mile from the edge of the blast zone.
October 3, 2025 at 12:51 AM
I do something like this and also have them stack sheets of acrylic with each contour to help visualize topography. Can add water table elevations too.
October 1, 2025 at 2:19 PM
Here are a couple more photos. One is of me standing on the floor next to the limb bones. The humerus barely fits on an 8-foot long sheet of styrofoam.

Second pic is most of the parts laid out on a table. The pes can separate from the radius and ulna as well.
July 25, 2025 at 4:49 PM
For #FossilFriday, my life-size Brachiosaurus forelimb and skull. Because even if they can’t make it to a museum, my students deserve to see and feel how enormous these animals were. Made of expanded polystyrene sheets and painted with acrylics.
July 25, 2025 at 3:01 PM
Be vewy vewy quiet. I’m hunting land snails. Or about to about to return a bunch of shopping carts from the Walmart parking lot…
June 27, 2025 at 9:56 PM
@moreorloess.bsky.social I was doing an endangered/threatened snail survey near Wauzeka today and I came across this fabulous clast-supported diamict exposed along a power line access road. Scale bar is 50cm.
June 27, 2025 at 9:50 PM
Always practice good OPSEC, because ____ sink ships.
April 10, 2025 at 10:27 PM
I’m gonna share a little bit about grief and loss and how I try to find/create joy among “all this:”
1/n
March 21, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Totally reasonable reconstruction, because playing ukulele doesn’t require supination of the wrists.
March 13, 2025 at 12:45 AM
Made a sticker for my uke
March 4, 2025 at 5:57 AM
Quote post with a picture you took in a National Park.

Visible and IR view of Old Faithful and geyser basin at Yellowstone NP.
February 25, 2025 at 5:47 PM
Ooh, ooh! Mind if I join in?
February 10, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Aurora visible over Door County, WI on June 10th. Bonus meteor showed up while taking pictures.
June 14, 2024 at 12:41 AM
May 21, 2024 at 1:48 AM
I had my Dinosaurs Diamonds and Disasters class use this one for a Hawaiian hazards lab. Using a fluorescent paint marker helped bring out the shape.
May 20, 2024 at 3:05 AM
more nerdery: here’s the Voigt slide analysis superimposed on the eruption profile (Lipman & Mullineaux, 1981).

even a “worst case” prediction underestimated how deep the failure/slide surface would extend into the volcano. But did estimate the lateral extent of the slide block pretty well
May 17, 2024 at 3:38 AM
Barely visible in western Wisconsin right now (11pm cdt)
May 12, 2024 at 4:06 AM
Hurry up and set, damn you!
May 11, 2024 at 2:00 AM
Went over a little chemistry before diving into the “gemstones” next week
March 2, 2024 at 12:22 AM
A biologically accurate Valentine
February 14, 2024 at 1:49 PM
Over on the other site some shitty AI images are being combined with otherwise exciting paleo news. Don’t do this. Find a way to use/credit a real artist’s work. Or hell, just use words.

Also, pterosaurs are not dinosaurs. And neither animal had two tails.
February 7, 2024 at 5:44 PM
On the first day, I asked my Dinosaurs, Diamonds, and Disasters class to tell me how many dinosaurs were in this group. 9 of the 23 said there were four. Only two got the correct number
January 24, 2024 at 3:46 AM