Dr. Jason Loxton

I'm a fossil guy, so sedimentary architecture is a secondary consideration, if considered at all when I'm out. But gosh, the rocks sometimes make you stare at them in wonder anyway. (Near Wadden's Cove, Cape Breton.)

Even for visa exempt countries "C.B.P. said it plans to ask applicants for a long list of personal data including [up to five years] social media, email addresses from the last decade, and the names, birth dates, places of residence and birthplaces of parents, spouses, siblings and children." Nope.

U.S. Plans to Scrutinize Foreign Tourists’ Social Media History

I don't plan on visiting the US anytime soon anyway, but this would have been a deal breaker. The US tourism industry is worth the same as their agricultural exports. Combined w/ new visa & park fees, it's like they're actively trying to shut it down. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/09/t...

My stats are 90% male too. I wonder how much of that is YouTube as a platform vs. a problem engaging a female audience with geology as a subject?

According to National Geographic, when the GSA finally gave Harley Bretz the Penrose Medal for his visionary work on catastrophic glacial floods at 96 years old, he joked to his son, "All my enemies are dead, I have no one to gloat over." Ha!

Was just chatting with Sam Hamilton about possibility of using as template for future CSVP. :)

I looked at Alibaba and got overwhelmed by a million suppliers. Might be worth reaching out to the PRI to see where they get their Paleozoic Pals made.

Hadrosaurs and Brussels sprouts... who even are we anymore?

Graphic with the text ‘I like my crust deformed’ above illustrations of a slice of pumpkin pie and a whole pumpkin pie topped with whipped cream. A small GPS antenna sits on the whole pie. The background is a shaded-relief map, and the EarthScope Consortium logo appears at the bottom.

Monitoring crustal deformation: sometimes in the lithosphere, sometimes on your pie plate.

🍁🍂 Happy Thanksgiving from EarthScope!

Trump Administration Will Raise Prices for Foreign Visitors at National Parks

Don't inherently oppose charging premium for foreign visitors, but $100 likely crosses threshold to counter productive. I visited Grand Canyon on side trip after conference in 2019. Spent >$1000 on trip. Probably wouldn't have gone w/ that surcharge. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/u...

I think I'd watched one baseball game in my life before the last week. I watched every minute of this series... and it was fantastic. Sad to lose, but amazing to come so close. And amazing to see how sport brought together ppl accross country in hope and support. #GoJaysGo

Fingers crossed!

Fun fact! Mastodon species are in the genus Mammut, which doesn't have the same root as 'mammal'. It's from an Indigenous language from Russia, and means 'earth horn' (for their fossil remains).

It may not be what was technically ever claimed, but common understanding of the Effect, i.e., that there is an inverse correlation between cockiness & depth of knowledge/competance is, I think, obvious to anyone who has ever been or dealt w/ 1st year university students (myself included in both).

Because the conditions materials are produced in (i.e., their impact on human heath, labour rights, and the environment) matter, if we're ethical consumers.

One of our temporary displays at the @johnsongeocentre.bsky.social features a group of Artemia, aka fairy shrimp or sea monkeys. These delicate little crustaceans have a fossil record extending back at least 115 million years! #FossilFriday

See doi.org/10.1080/0311...

This research not only provides exciting new insight into mammoth evolutionary history, it reveals an entirely unknown lineage of ancient mammoth. 🦣

gizmodo.com/million-year...

Great story! www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

Planning on applying for PromoScience for outreach activities through the Cape Breton Fossil Centre. Am hoping that some successful applicants might be willing to share their applications/budgets. In particular, I am curious how people made up the 2/3rds of $$$ that NSERC doesn't cover.

Another way of putting this: in the past 20 years or so, China and India *alone* have increased student places by about 70 million - that's roughly the same number of university places that existed in the entire world circa 1990.

Digitizing collections to unlock the full potential of palynology: A case study with the Smithsonian palynology collection Large palynological collections have been built over decades and contain vital information. However, they are often difficult to access and use effectively. What is the point of having such collectio....

Digitizing collections to unlock the full potential of palynology: A case study with the Smithsonian palynology collection

Carlos Jaramillo, Surangi W. Punyasena, Daurys de Alba, Roxana Alveo, Angelica Arcila, Jorge Bermudez, Jonatan Bustos et al

nph.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Concept art for the upcoming show Surviving Earth depicting Dimetrodon in various orthographic views as well as details of the skin, the eye and the head

More exciting news! I am now able to share with you more of the concept art I did for the amazing upcoming NBC Universal show “Surviving Earth” premiering next year! This time for a fan favorite, Dimetrodon!

I can’t say much more than this for now 🙊

Bit confused by this. Is this for supervised thesis-based masters? I've only written a few for MSc programs, but in each, I've either had feedback/follow up from potential supervisor or the student has told me that their supervisor commented on letters' content.

For those still considering US academic positions, this is a great one!

The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything How carbon dioxide made planet Earth, shaped human history, and now holds our future in the balance.  Every year, we are dangerously warping the climate by ...

Wrote a long book that comes out August. It covers from the origins of life at alkaline hydrothermal vents some 4 billion years ago through the Volcker Shock. I'm told pre-orders help, so if that sounds like your thing, buy one, won't you? www.harpercollins.com/products/the...

Geoscientists Nova Scotia threatens people opposed to uranium mining with fines, jail time - Halifax Examiner The provincial geoscientist associations were created in the wake of the Bre-X scandal to protect investors from defrauding exploration companies, not to protect the exploration industry from criticis...

As someone with a PhD in earth science, who is generally pro exploration/extraction, and teaches engineering and petroleum geology, it's hard for me to overstate how offbase I think APGNS is here. (It's also terrible optics.) www.halifaxexaminer.ca/dismantling-...

In the meantime the work happening right now is super interesting: study of ancient earthquakes preseved in the rocks. I can hook you up with contact if you want story.

Will be down to attempt to either extract or cast it in the next couple of weeks. Will keep you posted!

I have a colleague down there with a student and some other profs doing unrelated work, but... the fossil has emerged!