Jenny Bower

They should be posters. These are amazing

Cover of Soils and Vegetation of Hummocky Terrain, a soil survey report for the Northwest Territories published in 1974. Stylized landscapes, flora, fauna, and a human face in red, yellow, and brown.

Soils of the Nechako-Francois Lake Area, soil survey report for British Columbia, 1974. Black line drawing of bare (possibly tilled) land in foreground, with mixed conifer-deciduous forest, a stream, and forested mountains in background. Yellowish green background.

Pédologie du comté de Portneuf, Quebec, 1976. Three vertical columns, with soil profiles (and/or hillslope cross-sections?) to the left and right and a line drawing of a shovel and trowel under the sun.

Étude pédologique du comté d'Arthabaska, Quebec, 1984. Highly geometric vegetation (slabs of grass) underlain by granular soil under a pale blue sky.

So much appreciation for the Canadian government employees who poured this much love into soil survey art. Thanks @geodermatologist.bsky.social for pointing me towards this goldmine!

Join us in supporting NIH and NSF in local papers across the country!

Please let the GEO/EAR community know: Program Directors and Mission Support who’ve been at NSF under two years were just terminated via Zoom. Even those of us whose offer letter stated one probationary year and whose government data states “permanent”.

A+ cat preventing human from coding in R

purrr::quietly()

Happy National Maple Syrup Day! Celebrate by celebrating soil calcium biogeochemistry—an oldie but a goodie: research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/4...

View from a tree showing limbs and a roof

Two people in a tree looking over houses

Saturday recreational tree climb. Trees are magic

Well played, Pantone, we see you naming a 2.5YR 5/4 color of the year for #WorldSoilDay

Here’s another spodic soil. Most consistent brown at depth I have ever seen! The end of the tape measure is 83 cm, so the spodic horizon is >50 cm thick. This abundance of spodic materials without an E horizon results from lateral podzolization

A Spodosol soil pit exposure showing brightly defined horizons, including an O, E, Bhs, Bs, down to a BC and C

Where are all the podzols for #WorldSoilDay? Here’s one from a 200-year soil study in the Green Mountains, Vermont. The field tech was so proud of this pit—check the right angle on the side!

A soil sample displaying distinctive redoximorphic features: bright orange patches and mottling caused by iron oxidation, indicating periodic saturation typical of wetland soils.

A Munsell soil color chart page labeled 10YR, displaying a grid of soil color swatches ranging from pale yellow-brown to dark reddish-brown. The swatches are arranged with increasing darkness vertically and increasing color intensity horizontally.

Here's some gorgeous wetland soil for #worldsoilday! This sample's got some ~Fe-bulous~ redoximorphic features & is a nice example of how wetlands paint with iron oxides 🧪🌎⚒️ #soilscience

That gradient 🤩

Soil isn't just underground. With the help of networks of mycorrhizal fungi, soils are formed even on the most vertical cliffs.

Underground Explorer Felipe Morales Armijo is working w/@spununderground.bsky.social to map vertical fungi across the cliffs of Mexico.

Happy World Soils Day.

A soil core showing surface organic matter enrichment

Happy World Soil Day! This year’s theme is “caring for soils”. We are all soil stewards. Here’s a soil I’m trying to build structure in through OM additions and de-lawnification

2-meter soil profile consisting of windblown sediment atop alluvium that has interacted with sulfide rich groundwater, resulting in a lot of weird mineral transformations

Happy world soils day! To celebrate, take a look at this soil profile that lives in my brain rent-free. It is an alluvial soil that has interacted with sulfide- and methane-rich, anoxic groundwater. These interactions have resulted in a lot of cool mineral transformations (and pretty colors)

Duke Energy is the third largest emitter of GHG in the nation and has fought every effort to decarbonize. I hope others follow suit

So proud of my town. #Carrboro

I missed this post genre, it hits the same dopamine receptors as being in the woods with other naturalists

Thank you to farm workers for our food

Drained peatland in Iceland with a large drainage ditch filled with water and some sheep.

Healthy peatlands are one of our best climate heroes, storing carbon for thousands of years. Healthy peatlands are gloriously mucky. Drained peatlands might grow food for some time but are a massive source of greenhouse gas emissions. Keep bogs wet - please share!

Sunday afternoon at the game lands. Highlights: Cortinarius caperatus, strongly expressed subangular blocky peds in a roadcut, and fall colors of sweetgum and muscadine.

#soilscience #pedology

Shalane Flanagan - Wikipedia

My wife and I signed up for a neighborhood turkey trot. The proceeds go to the food pantry, and they give you $50 if you beat the record time. I’m losing my mind, the record is held by Shalane Flanagan
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalane...

Oh fascinating, I see. I suppose I like AC then, as much as one can 😬

Nice profile! If the second horizon really has been modified by significant losses of fines, I might consider an E horizon. A lumbric E? Just trying to be spicy here.

ICYMI... took me a few days to stumble upon this one go.bsky.app/HADDT8P

a goofy meme depicting two versions of the same person, one in a feather suit, the other wearing plain clothes

A fun way to start on a new platform: obscure memes related to a specific corner of a discipline that I didn't even know existed until college--soil science.

Miniature soil profile on a playground, with two layers of sand separated by a bleached horizon and thin layer of clay-rich material

Dark brown soil aggregates from two horizons, likely transported material over the original soil surface

An earthworm channel within rotten rock (saprolite), filled in with material from surface horizons (krotovina)

My adopted street dog Alpaca and partner Juliana on a slope above exposed soil. Reddish-brown subsoil to the right could be a pocket of weathered volcanic ash, surrounded by soils derived from sedimentary rock.

Megadiversidad de #suelos en el parque infantíl del Parque Nacional, #Bogotá #urbansoils #geodiversity

Weird coming from a former Missourian, but this was my first Mollisol! The rocks were the best part.