Dr. Simon Jowitt

YouTube video by Vox The "white gold rush"

Nice to have the opportunity to contribute to this Vox piece on lithium and the challenges and opportunities in the sector for Nevada: www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYzm...

Just gone past 7,000 citations according to Google Scholar. Not bad given my first was apparently in 2012, and good to know my work is being read and used…

Another day at the grindstone ahead 😆 🎂 🥳

Not only is today Yorkshire Day but it is also apparently International Beer Day. What a Friday!

Not sure how AGU can get away with charging $70 an abstract and then have a very problematic submission system. Yes, it is busy but who doesn’t wait until the last minute to submit?

Firth of Forth, just north of Edinburgh. The Forth Rail Bridge and the two later road crossings.

Some rather impressive bridgework…

Hello Edinburgh… it’s been a while.

Nevada mine delayed amid lithium price plunge • Nevada Current A proposed lithium-boron mine in Nevada has been delayed for a second time amid a lithium price crash caused by softer electric vehicle demand and an oversupply of the battery metal globally.

Nice to be quoted in this article on challenges over lithium mine development in the Silver State: nevadacurrent.com/2025/07/11/n...

Age verification? Still waiting for my copper ingots.

Is Nevada really the gold state? If Nevada was a country, it would be the fifth largest gold producer in the world, behind China, Russia, Australia and Canada.

Is Nevada the gold rather than silver state? Perhaps… www.reviewjournal.com/business/is-...

Fact-checking three key claims about Trump's mega-bill Trump insists that the new bill will save the US billions, but it has been criticised by his old ally Elon Musk.

Well, there’s another $3 trillion added to the U.S. national debt to continue the record of Republican leadership moving the deficit in the wrong direction… www.bbc.com/news/article...

Gave a pint or so today… or nearly an armful as Tony Hancock might have put it.

I see Wimbledon have replaced line judges with robots, yet they still ignore my suggestion to replace all the ball boys and ball girls with a single Jack Russell terrier.

Federal cuts could put state geological surveys on shaky ground in the Mountain West The Trump administration’s proposed budget bill would cut funding to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) by nearly 40%, including grants to universities. That could affect funding relied on by survey of...

More commentary on the funding situation where cuts would negatively impact exactly the work the federal government wants to do in mineral exploration and mining to support national, economic and energy security: www.kunr.org/local-storie... - precompetitive data is crucial…

There Might Not Be a Map for That: Budget Cuts Threaten Geological Surveys

Nice to get to talk to the New York Times @nytimes.com about funding challenges around publicly available precompetitive geoscience data acquisitions and geological mapping right when these data are more vital than ever for national and economic security: www.nytimes.com/2025/06/20/c...

This journal “paper” seems to be doing the rounds but if you actually read it, it is very much an op-ed rather than anything focused on science. Any scientific papers with quotes in like these should ring alarm bells and some of the references seem a little worrying too… www.jmaj.jp/detail.php?i...

One nice thing about flying out of Reno airport is the artwork by the check in desks, which incorporates geological maps of Nevada. Next stop (after two layovers!), Potsdam, Germany!

Turkmenistan President Serdar Berdimuhamedov and his unfeasibly smooth neck standing in a field, holding a sheaf of corn to demonstrate that his country is a land of plenty, and absolutely not the other thing. He has the Ted Cruz “I like lasagne but it’s not what I ordered” face of a man who doesn’t do emotions.

Meanwhile in Turkmenistan, they’ve let President Serdar Berdimuhamedov out for his annual school trip to the middle of a field.

“But I stood in a field last year!” he complains.
“Shut up and stand in the field or no chippy tea tonight”, says his dad.

Not every day you come across rather nice stibnite crystals like these. There’s antimony in them thar hills…

Rempe releases statement that Nevada athletics will opt in to the House settlement Rempe releases statement that Nevada athletics will opt in to the House settlement; Judge approved settlement Friday night

So more money for athletics to the detriment of everything else? Will be watching to see how this pans out. Athletes should have fair payment, but will this drive to try and be competitive mean the rest of the university suffers? www.rgj.com/story/sports...

Too dangerous to visit: 30-foot boiling water ‘geyser’ erupts in South Reno Geologists don't know why it's erupting, or how long it will last, but they're cautioning the community to stay away from the boiling hot water.

New geyser activity in Nevada; good to see the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology keeping the piblic informed about this geothermal activity. www.2news.com/news/too-dan...

Last day in the office for a short while before heading to Baton Rouge and humidity tomorrow…

It blew up. The last sentence means the Trump admin has lifted all restrictions.

Good overview of mining and exploration activity in Nevada in Engineering & Mining Journal: www.e-mj.com/flipbooks/ma...

I’m wasting my life

Not a bad memento from giving a talk to the Arizona Geological Society a couple of days ago…

Rightly…

It’s only getting much play in the trade/transport niche press. But pretty real product shortages beginning in mid-May or so are already locked in. They’re maybe a thousand miles out in the Pacific Ocean. Modern trade takes place in gargantuan container ships. There are very detailed records …

This is a key point. Shortages are already baked.