Ian L

Photo of chrysotile, a form of asbestos.

Mmmmm, chrysotile.
Why do the useful minerals have to be so deadly?

Cross-sectional view through domelike laminated structure in tan/orange limestone. Lens cap for scale.

A little stromatolite buddy to help get your day started:
Proterozoic Crystal Springs Formation, California. ⚒️

Iguanadon family feeding and playing around

Compsognathus investigating a shallow lagoon

Protoceratops and offspring

These absolutely brilliant colouring sheets are part of the art activities at next weekends @dinoconuk.bsky.social found in our creative space to relax, inspire, or chill out. Thanks to incredible @saralutra.bsky.social and the ever lovely @gaffamondo.bsky.social 🏴‍☠️🖤🦖

Ideas for minerals to compete in #MinCup2025? Nominate them now! www.mineralcup.org/nominations

Want to be part of this year’s organizing team? We love volunteers! www.mineralcup.org/volunteer

Fossil swamp-forest plants at Brymbo, Wrexham - where 300 million years ago giant lycopods (clubmosses) like Lepidodendron towered to over 120ft tall with massive horsetails like Calamites! Amazing to be able to see these at Stori Brymbo.

Ordovician named by charles Lapworth to resolve a despute between Adam Sedgewick and Roderick Murchison (Ordovician Controvesy) . Silurian named by Murchison — after two Welsh tribes - Silures and Ordovices

Discover the landscape of the ocean floor There's more to it than continental shelfes, abyssal plains and mid ocean ridges!

Check out these great new story maps from @geomarkiel.bsky.social on discovering the "seascapes" of the ocean floor, including dangerous hidden volcanoes!
storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/5b3e...
and
storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ea60...

🌊 🦑

The Cells That Breathe Two Ways | Quanta Magazine In a hot spring at Yellowstone National Park, a microbe does something that life shouldn’t be able to do: It breathes oxygen and sulfur at the same time.

Bacteria from a Yellowstone hot spring do something no other organism has been found to do: breathe oxygen and sulfur at the same time. 🧪 It's both aerobic and anaerobic, a beautiful freaky creature from a beautiful freaky place

⚠️ A wonderful opportunity to join an online event and learn more about ichnology🤓 ⬇️

#ichnology #online #webinar #event #join #zoom

July 22, 1960, the discovery & description of the high-pressure mineral coesite ends an almost 100-year-long debate about the origin of Barringer Crater in #Arizona 💎☄️
www.forbes.com/sites/davidb...

Climate change is turning Switzerland's glaciers into ‘Swiss cheese’ Glacier shrinkage has wide impacts on agriculture, fisheries, drinking water levels, and border tensions when it comes to cross-boundary rivers.

Climate change turns Alpine glaciers into ‘Swiss cheese’, raising water and power concerns

www.euronews.com/green/2025/0...

(a) Gas bubbles from a ROV image collected across the Pianosa Ridge; (b) Sub-bottom seismic profile collected in the Adriatic Sea with superimposed gas flares detected with multibeam EM2040 in 2018 (modified from Rovere et al.,).

#Weekendreading: Spatola et al., on the distribution of pockmarks around the Mediterranean. Some methodological issues, but an interesting dataset with implications for hydrocarbon and groundwater seeps.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

hand painted cast of a fractofusus with leaf like fractal branches arranged in 2 rows across a central curved axis

This #FossilFriday offering is a hand painted cast of the Ediacaran fractal-like #Fractofusus misrai from Mistaken Point, Newfoundland for an outreach project i’m doing. This is one of the abundant curvy specimens that Rod Taylor worked on for this cool paper www.researchgate.net/publication/...

#FossilFriday Elrathia kingi is one of the most common trilobites in the Cambrian rocks of Utah’s West Desert. Thousands are found yearly—many geologists have one on their fridge. Yet this specimen - first published in 2008 - is the only one I know of that preserves both limbs and gut remains. 🤩

⚠️ The nice opportunity to join on-line and learn more about calcareous nanofossils ⬇️

Non-members welcome: to register email: sarah@geologistsassociation.org.uk

#geology #geologyrocks #fossils

Banded black, grey and white gneiss shows minor S shaped folds in sheared Lewisian gneiss. Berneray, Outer Hebrides.

Live from the field, #FridayFolds on Berneray, Outer Hebrides.
Sheared Lewian gneiss.
Waiting for tide to go out 😎

Drumadoon Sill exposed as a cliff on the Arran shore

Congratulations to Arran Geopark on being awarded
🗻 UNESCO Global Geopark 🏔️status!

It’s fab to see Arran being recognised for its unique geological heritage, rich biodiversity, and commitment to protecting their natural heritage.

Common seals basking on a Palaeogene dyke at Kildonan.

Three Highland cows (two adults and one baby) in Glen Rosa. It is a cloudy day but the sun is shining over the scene. There are mountains in the background.

Pladda island from Kildonan at the south of the island. You can see a small amount of mist across the sand at the forefront of the image, and some large rocks are dotted around. It is a sunny day, with some small clouds off to the left.

Cir Mhor mountain at sunrise. It is glowing a deep copper colour.

The Isle of Arran has officially been announced as a UNESCO Global Geopark! 🎉

UNESCO’s Global Geoparks are areas with internationally important landscapes & bring together other aspects of heritage such as archaeology, history, culture and biodiversity.

www.bgs.ac.uk/news/isle-of...

An image of a rock in thin section, displaying crystals of various minerals (kyanite, sillimanite, muscovite, chlorite, plagioclase). A schistose texture is observed, with the muscovite being aligned and appearing to 'flow' from top right to bottom left of the image.

A nice schist with muscovite, kyanite/sillimanite, chlorite, and twinned plagioclase.

#thinsectionthursday #geology #science #minerals #rocks

Location of 1990 Clun Earthquake. Background Image: BGS 1:1,500,000 Tectonic map of Britain, Ireland and adjacent areas, Pharaoh et al. 1996.

OTD UK Earthquakes: April 2, 1990. 13:46:34.2UTC M5.1 Depth=14km Clun (Bishop’s Castle), Shropshire. Felt: England & Wales + southern Scotland & eastern Ireland. Damage: Clun Castle, Shrewsbury, Wrexham. Clun is on the Pontisford-Linley Fault, the western edge of the Midlands Microcraton. ⚒️🧪

A new Middle Jurassic lagoon margin assemblage of theropod and sauropod dinosaur trackways from the Isle of Skye, Scotland Although globally scarce, Middle Jurassic dinosaur tracks are known from the Isle of Skye, Scotland, and help indicate the palaeoenvironmental preferences and behaviour of major dinosaur clades. Here,...

Thanks to everyone supporting us, especially our funders @leverhulme.ac.uk & National Geographic

Read the paper here (open access!):

journals.plos.org/plosone/arti...

Eruptions Newsletter, Preview Edition: February 15, 2025 Things are busy in the Mediterranean.

It is earlier than I expected, but here is preview post of the new Eruptions newsletter. I've got information and background on the current unrest around Santorini that (as of 2/15) includes tremor to go with the earthquake swarm. The post is free to everyone: eruptions.beehiiv.com/p/eruptions-...

And it's sheared! ⚒️

The most spectacular rocks of the Semail Ophiolite are so-called 'pillow lavas'. These structures form when lava erupts below sea level: the lava quickly cools from the outside, but keeps flowing on the inside. Cut them, and you get a pile of pillows. Good for a rest day!

Santorini is at the center of a mystery: Why do earthquakes keep shaking the island? The Greek island has a long history of earthquakes, but what is causing the recent series of quakes has scientists perplexed.

Great article by Robin Andrews that captures some of the recent findings and uncertainty around current activity at Santorini. www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...

I’m packing print orders and painting today- and in the meantime, I’m going to start sharing more of my work in the interest of spreading a little joy and nostalgia, and giving the new faces around here a chance to get to know me better! Hi!! 🥰🎨

Graptolite reconstructions based on Ruedemann (1895) and others, as found in Prothero (2013: fig. 18.5) with new identification of genera. Pterograptus is based on Ruedemann (1947; pl. 61: Syndyograptus bridgei, now Pterograptus elegans). Pendeograptus is based on Ruedemann (1904, pl. 10, fig. 6) and additional illustrations in Ruedemann (1904). Didymograptellus is based on Ruedemann (1947, pl. 54, fig. 34). Cyrtograptus is based on Cyrtograptus kirki (Ruedemann 1947, pl. 89, fig. 13). The long nemata and attachments to seaweeds are interpretations not based on fossil evidence. The specimen of Cyrtograptus kirki is shown as if the nema extends from the proximal end, even though it runs along the primary stipe in monograptids. Thus, an attachment of the illustrated type is impossible.

The past is full of aliens, and the way graptolites have been reconstructed (with their wierd floatation organs) is high on my list of those. But, like most other groups, our understanding of them has evolved significantly since the XIX century. 🧪⚒️
link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Paradoxides davidis davidis.
Paradoxides davidis Zone,
Manuels River Formation.
Middle Cambrian,
Newfoundland.

#newfoundland #newfoundfossils #Paradoxidesdavids #middlecambrian #manuelsriverformation

YouTube video by Faculty of Science, University of Calgary EARTHx Series: Risky Business: Life Along an Active Plate Margin

A few months ago I gave a talk at the @ucalgary.bsky.social and some folks had expressed interest in watching the lecture. It has been posted and you can find it here - youtu.be/KR3MN9PIupo?...