Benjamin Mills

The 5,000-Kilometer Echo of Earth’s Worst Extinction How matching chemical signals in two distant ancient oceans show the end-Permian crisis was a single, connected planetary event. A team of scientists collects samples...

252 million years ago, Earth faced its worst extinction.
Now scientists have found the same chemical signals in rocks from Iran and South China, nearly 5,000 km apart.
The message is clear: the end-Permian crisis wasn’t local chaos. It was one connected planetary event.
🧪 #SciComm

Really interesting mechanism here I think: thousand-year orbital cycle modulation can drive million-year pulses in nutrients, oxygen and (we hypothesize) biodiversity during early animal evolution

OA paper out today:
agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...

😂

and yeah I'm looking beyond the nuance of this being nearly two billion years before fish existed...

Googled the title of our new paper out today and the FIRST HIT was an AI sludge article that was completely incorrect

A: no we didn't analyse phosphorus isotope ratios in rocks
B: NOBODY analyses these
C: because phosphorus only has ONE stable isotope

Dead internet here we go

Public talk this eve at the wonderful Seven Arts bar! I am reliably informed there will also be jazz!

www.sevenleeds.co.uk/events/

There’s an interesting series of 5 free online paleobotany lectures via the Oxford University Botanic Garden this autumn. You can book all 5 lectures here (scroll down webpage to ‘Get your tickets now’ button) www.obga.ox.ac.uk/event/dr-san... #paleobotany

Lepidaspis by Nobu Tomura

New palaeo-PhD opportunity! Will you be the one to figure out the anatomy and function of fossil jawless fish? Come join the team! Application Deadline August 22nd, funding for UK student only (sorry)
www.findaphd.com/phds/project...

🚨Job offer 🚨 Postdoctoral position in micropaleontology opened in our team!

Hi Goldschmidt! Catch my Berner Lecture at 2.30 today!

Check out this cool map of sea level variability due to glaciation over geological time. Awesome to be involved in this work led by Douwe van der Meer

open access paper here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Good summary!

Figure from the paper showing our model results when considering the tropical vegetaiton collapse - a long-high temperature period following the PTME

Great to see this finally out today! We show that the collapse of tropical vegetation during the Permo-Triassic extinction is a key driver of the long-term super-greenhouse climate that followed it.

Read more at www.nature.com/articles/s41...

EOS seminar 11 June 2025 Ben Mills

I found it!

southampton.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Page...

Thanks- likewise!

There is a recording i believe!

Title slide- Earth evolution models and the past and future of life on our planet

Talking about the deep past and deep future of the Earth today at @sotonoceanearth.bsky.social / @noc.ac.uk Seminar at 3pm!

It still may be LIP weathering, perhaps with more uplift and different hydrology, and maybe the Neoproterozoic system is less resilient to temperature change... plenty to investigate!

Yes, same! And even if we assume more weathering then we start to get in trouble with the strontium isotope record!

Did flood basalt weathering draw down significant amounts of CO2 in the Mesozoic? We think not so much:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Banner for Life and Planet conference showing a colourful globe with the registration price and website link and geological society logo

Registration is open for Life and Planet 2025 on July 14-16!
lifeandplanet.com
£60 (student/GSL fellow)
£80 standard
Hope to see you there!

Registration is now open for @lifeandplanet.bsky.social in London July - 14th -16th. A nice conference for ECRs working on all aspects of the co-evolution of life and the Earth's surface. #geology #paleontology lifeandplanet.com

Microbial dormancy as an ecological and biogeochemical regulator on Earth - Nature Communications Dormancy enables microbes to withstand periods of environmental harshness. It occurs throughout diverse ecosystems and spans vast timescales, and could play an important role in shaping the co-ev...

How can zombie microbes interact with the Earth system? 🦠🧟🌎

Microbes, even when dormant, play a massive role in shaping Earth's ecosystems & biogeochemistry 🌎

In @natcomms.nature.com I explore dormancy in the context of Earth’s geosphere-biosphere co-evolution

🧵👇
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The best part about running a conference is knowing that everyone else also leaves their submissions to the last minute!

PS: Life and Planet 2025 abstract submissions are extended for another week, so if you missed it you are not too late!

lifeandplanet.com

Awesome!

Excited for Life and Planet 2025 in London this July - please don't forget to submit your (free) abstracts!

lifeandplanet.com

An advertisement for the Life and Planet meeting with text reading: “Life and Planet 2025. London. 14-16 July. Co-evolution of life and the Earth. lifeandplanet.com” over a blue, purple, and pink cartoon of the London skyline in front of the Earth. On the right, addition text reads: “Abstract submissions open until April 9th! Life and Planet is a meeting for researchers exploring the co-evolution of life and the Earth over geologic time. We are interested in all work that examines how life impacts the Earth, and how the global environment influences life. We welcome research from all time periods, at all scales, from the oceans to the land, and beyond! Life and Planet is Early Career Researcher (ECR) focused. Keynotes are chosen from ECR abstract submissions”

🌎🦠🐚🧪🌏🧬🌳👽🌍

Interested in the co-evolution of life and our planet? Life and Planet 2025 abstracts are still open until 9 April! The meeting this year will be 14-16 July. Students and early career researchers especially encouraged!

lifeandplanet.com @lifeandplanet.bsky.social

FYI if you are using language models for research:

Here's Chat 4.5 making a series of totally incorrect - but plausible to a nonspecialist - claims about our work:

And where is Snowball Earth you may ask? Well yes, while the Cryogenian is cooler than other periods, we didn't get one. Ongoing work to test specific hypotheses to see if we can recreate it.

Release v1.2.0 · bjwmills/SCION Extended model timeframe to 1 Ga Other functional improvements - see Guidebook Research paper at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloplacha.2025.104791

This is model version 1.2.0, which also includes some other quality of life improvements.

As always, 100% OA - get yours today!

github.com/bjwmills/SCI...