Dr Craig O'Neill

I was thinking about an old friend this morning. How we’d hit the bar at Newcastle airport on work trips. Found out at lunch he’d passed. Watch out when people fall off the radar. The little world of Australian engineering geophysics lost a mentor and a friend. RIP Mick.

And now that generation inflicts the same trauma on our children. Character building 😀

ROFL

A sobering read on AI and productivity, and especially on why productivity is not progress.

Just back from a geochemistry conference in Prague, having visited the Terezin concentration camp on a spare day. Amongst the incarcerated (which included Dvorak’s protege and a heartbreaking number of kids), I found a fellow earth scientist, who somehow survived the killings.

About to moult, then? Ours gets moody and likes a soak before he flakes everywhere.

Oh shit! Great catch.

This seems pretty reasonable. Although getting any apartment in most Australian cities is challenging.

We're gonna need the Solar System ephemeris models updated on a regular basis!

Really hoping we have better constraints on the masses and distances of KBOs so these models account for this in more detail.

Wait, I recognize that colour scheme... :)

They'll show this at the post mortem for planetary science.

🚨 We’re hiring at UCC! Two roles in energy systems research with our Energy Policy & Modelling Group (MaREI, Cork). Work with us on Ireland’s energy transition 🧵

Your telescope is Shamash? Oh my god.
Better use the UV filters.

Residual layering in that. Looks cherty.

I think I’m loosing some students to this phenomena.

Proposed NASA cuts in context, courtesy of the Planetary Society #astronomy #science

What came first, the echidna or the egg? A: the platypus.

There was a whale on Brisbane river tonight. But, like, 30m above it.

Reading our paper copy of the NY Times I came across Xavier Le Pichon’s obituary! What a loss. A pioneer of plate tectonics. www.nytimes.com/2025/04/09/s...

⚒️ Could use some more Kangaroo Point ignimbrite like QUT but it’s alright.

YouTube video by modelsandjuniors The Waste Land (TS Eliot) read by Alec Guinness

Alec Guiness reading TS Eliot’s The Wasteland. I suppose this was why the internet was invented. m.youtube.com/watch?v=Hcj4... #poetry

Something we have up to recently published in Nature: The Hadean Protocrust

Closer view of Bangkok skyscraper collapse:

Ht @drericding.bsky.social

This is just bonkers.

A new episode of Strombolian activity occurred on 24 March 2025 at the Southeast Crater of #Etna. It started on the morning and culminated around noon, and then diminished; some explosive activity was still going on at nightfall. Seen from Nicolosi, on the south flank of the volcano

It’s a sad day for gin. But good for food?

So many top notch boutique gin distillers! Where’s the Archie Rose? The Distillery Botanica? 😉

⚒️⚒️ Yet again those Indonesian volcanos causing havoc to Australasian air travel.

I am, possibly, a little late to the game, but really enjoying this book by @moudhy.bsky.social. Sumerians 5000 years ago sound a lot like my neighbours. I get these guys. A lot more than I get some people today. Also, they were fixated with beer.

Chances the poem here is responsible for at least one HP Lovecraft story?