Dr Kaja Fenn (she/her)

Newcastle scientists contribute to UNESCO glacier loss report Scientists from Newcastle University have contributed to a major new international report highlighting accelerating decline of glaciers and ice sheets and the consequences for people and the planet.

Fantastic to see our colleagues Professor Bethan Davies @iceybethan.bsky.social and Dr Owen King contributing to UNESCO & WMO’s new volume Glaciers and Ice Sheets in a Warming World: Impacts and Outcomes!

www.ncl.ac.uk/press/articl...

Researchers discover new tyrannosaur species in ‘duelling dinosaurs’ fossil Analysis of Montana fossils shows the battling predator was a fully grown Nanotyrannus, not a young T rex

Nanotyrannus is real.

For years I’ve considered many mid-sized gracile tyrannosaurs to be juvenile T. rex.

But I was wrong. This stunning new skeleton of a mature long-armed small tyrannosaur is clearly a different species.

Isn’t science fun?!

www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

We organized an excursion to a former peat extraction area, drained&now restored peatland forest, and a mire conservation area. I wanted to share with you the atmosphere of this crisp autumn day in the Finnish countryside.

Researcher amid the tussocky grassland on the islands around Stykkishólmur, Iceland, with distant mountains.

A common eider nest, heavily lined with down, containing four eggs.

We have an @aries-dtp.bsky.social PhD opportunity working with the Snæfellsnes Research Centre, Iceland, on how seabird nesting decisions might shape ecosystem processes, aries-dtp.ac.uk/studentships... With folk inc. @wetlandresilienceresearchgroup.com. If that sounds like you, get in touch :-)

We forget too easily: many major breakthrough started as blue-sky research.
The global shift toward prioritising funding for applied science is incredibly short-sighted. Curiosity-driven discovery is what fuels future innovation — here are some great examples.

🧹🌲 Ever heard whispers of a witch who flies through the forest in a mortar and pestle? Meet Baba Yaga: the mysterious, chicken-leg-house-living legend of Slavic folklore! 👀 This #WorldCultureWednesday, we’re diving into the myths that mix magic, mystery, and moral lessons.💀✨

Krapina, Croatia (~130 ka): eight white-tailed eagle talons show smoothed cut marks, polished facets & small notches—clear Neanderthal ornaments. #PaleoPost #Neanderthals #Krapina #SymbolicBehavior
Paper: doi.org/10.1371/jour...

YouTube video by Landscapes Live Nicole Gasparini: LL 16.10.25

Need a break from teaching???
Why not have a class viewing of my Landscapes Live talk?
Topics are landscape evolution, weathering, landslides, reading signals in deposited sediment
youtu.be/kr-T-Xoxp_4?...

As droughts become longer and more intense, their toll on ecosystems could be far greater than we thought. Our new paper in @science.org shows how prolonged & extreme droughts cause dramatic, cumulative losses in ecosystem productivity across the globe www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Exciting 24-month Postdoc opportunity for a peatland palaeoecologist, working with Dr Jenna Sutherland at Leeds Beckett U. on the NERC-funded InSPIRE project. Investigating initiation of new peatlands in deglaciating parts of Alaska, including fieldwork vacancies.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/ce0984li_web...

My wonderful friend @geologyjohnson.bsky.social is working on early life and some controversial 2.1 billion years old fossils. Check out this article in Scientific American

www.scientificamerican.com/article/comp...

It's a small grant but it is indeed very exciting!

So we have a lot of fieldwork planned in Aotearoa NZ and Tasmania this coming winter & spring 🌏 as well as the 11th IAG International Conference on Geomorphology

Watch this space....

#SouthernDustscapes #Palaeoclimate #NewZealand #Tasmania #Geochronology

We can tackle this gap by studying past dust levels and deposits (loess). But to date Southern Hemisphere has been under-studied, with a handful of sites with continuous record in comparison to 100 high-resolution terrestrial sites in Northern Hemisphere.

Dust plays a crucial role in the Earth system. Its impacts include:
•Climate—heating/cooling the atmosphere
•Ecosystems—fertilising land & oceans, driving CO₂ uptake
•Health—contributing to respiratory & cardiovascular disease
But we still lack data on how much dust is in the atmosphere at any time.

Together with @lydiamackenzie.bsky.social @University of Tasmania, Peter Almond @Lincoln University, Callum Rees & Alan Palmer @Massey University we will investigate aeolian deposits in New Zealand and Tasmania, developing chronologies +environmental reconstructions to trace Quaternary dusty history

In another exciting news I am kicking off a new project generously supported by the @royalsociety.org 🙏

The title tells you the whole story: “SOUTHERN DUSTSCAPES – Reconciling scales of past dust fluxes and their impact on climate in the Southern Hemisphere.”

#LoessIsMore #Dust #Quaternary

Line graph time series of Svalbard sea ice area for 2025 compared to 2012 2020, and the 1981-2010 average with percentiles shown. There is a large seasonal cycle.

Here is a closer look at the record low #Arctic sea ice around Svalbard currently. This coincides with the record warmth as well (check out my earlier post). Earlier last week temperatures in parts of Svalbard were more similar to July than October.

Graphic produced by cryo.met.no/en/sea-ice-i...

Oh caveat 🫂

Headline from an article in Nature this week that states "Prizes must recognize machine contributions to discovery. The future of science will be written by humans and machines together. Awards should reflect that reality."

Lol the Nobels can't even acknowledge women's contribution to discovery. But sure let's acknowledge The Machines.

River Wye pollution prompts UK's largest environmental lawsuit Livestock and water companies are accused of “extensive” pollution in the Wye, Lugg and Usk rivers.

Campaigners + local businesses claim phosphates + nitrates from the collective poo of as many as 23million chickens packed into the Wye catchment from a growing number of intensive chicken farms are driving algal blooms, harming fish + wildlife.
🧵 1/
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Sheesh - a tsunami big enough to push coral boulders 100s of m inland in the British Virgin Islands around the year 1400, likely sourced from an earthquake on the Puerto Rico Trench.

Carbon offsets fail to cut global heating due to ‘intractable’ systemic problems, study says Analysis of 25 years of evidence shows most schemes are poor quality and fail to lower emissions

News that shocks no one: Carbon offsets do nothing for climate.

This supports chronological information derived from nearby Mumba Rockshelter, Lake Eyasi, Nasera Rock-shelter, and Enkapune Ya Muto Rockshelter in southern Kenya.

The new dates provisionally bracket the entire Middle Stone Age (MSA) to Later Stone Age (LSA) transition at Olduvai between roughly 63,000 years ago (the provisional age for the youngest MSA tools in the underlying Ndutu Beds) and 34,000 years ago (the oldest LSA tools in the Naisiusiu Beds).

Dating the Naisiusiu beds has historically been challenging due to scarce datable material. Our results now refine the Naisiusiu beds to:
• Lower Unit by 14C: 49,728±1378 cal year BP
• Middle Unit (hosting the LSA assemblage) by OSL 34.2±2.8 - 24.0±2.0 ka
• Upper Unit by OSL: 24.0±2.0 - 19.6±1.6 ka

📣Our new paper presents new a high-resolution luminescence and radiocarbon chronology for the Naisiusiu Beds at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. This site is crucial for understanding the cultural and biological evolution of Homo sapiens in the Late Pleistocene.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

This is a beautiful image

🧩 Highlights:
• First detailed geological sequence for Dalarik-1 Cave
• New age constraints on key volcanic + sedimentary units
• Links between volcanic history and archaeological preservation in the southern Caucasus

Check out our new paper 👇 in Quaternary Science Reviews.
It explores the geological context of Dalarik-1 Cave (Armenia) — refining how we understand early human activity in the Aragats Volcanic Province.
By the wider @humendylab.bsky.social team

📄 www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...