Chris Rowan

Arguably, De Beers are the OG “convince everyone our stuff is really valuable by continually telling them it is valuable” company.

I think part of the Core’s very real charm is that the actors playing the scientists manage to hit a “we are scientists who have suddenly found ourselves in a ridiculously disaster movie” vibe.

Obviously avoiding the core made it totally ok for building tunnels through! It’s all rock, right? 😂

As a child, I loved a book series in our library about technologies of the future. As well as retro-futuristic staples like solar power from space and O’Neill cylinders, they had trains in vacuum tubes that took curved paths through the lower mantle to the other side of the Earth.

Nah, that’s the sort of mundane solution engineers confining themselves to the laws of physics come up with!

Even if some samples lack estimates of peak temperatures and pressures, coding for the presence or absence of key metamorphic minerals seems like it would be an important thing to do?

You can quibble over exactly how they defined different classes but the thing that gives me most pause is that as far as I can tell, no information about the degree of alteration/metamorphism was included in the training data.

The hypothesis that biological molecules in rocks break down over time (and with heat & pressure) in unique ways that leave a signature distinct from the products of abiotic degradation, and machine learning can accurately identify what may be subtle differences in complex spectra, seems valid.

Organic geochemical evidence for life in Archean rocks identified by pyrolysis–GC–MS and supervised machine learning | PNAS Throughout Earth’s history, organic molecules from both abiogenic and biogenic sources have been buried in sedimentary rocks. Most of these organic...

🧪⚒️ Attempt to use machine learning to distinguish between biotic & abiotic organics in ancient rocks. Headline results (organic material in 3.3Gyr sediments classified as biological in origin, and material in 2.5Gyr rocks ID’d as being from photosynthetic life) largely in line with other evidence.

This is very much a “now you have strayed into my domain of expertise, I can quantify exactly how full of BS you are” moment.

“Just like in that amazing documentary, The Core…”

There are people who believe knowledge is about accumulating facts. Then there are people who realize knowledge is learning how to think about those facts. The former is transactional learning. The latter is real.

As a Brit who grew up with every single British show on TV making a “Christmas Special” that was more often than not obviously filmed in August, I can confirm that we are in no position to judge.

In my experience, the burden is mostly on the students. I just have to send a copy of a test to accessibility services, or change the time limit on the LMS.

(admittedly, the latter is rage-inducing because you are interacting with an LMS)

Given it’s still a microseismic hotspot, a super-young age is definitely possible!

A Clear View of Scottish Highlands Astronauts had a rare chance to view a rocky landscape that is often shrouded in clouds.

The Great Glen Fault formed during a continental collision about 400 million years ago, but its not exactly hiding - it's trace can be seen from space as a straight gash through Scotland, filled with Loch Ness and other iconic lochs.

A textbook example of tectonic inheritance.

⚒️ That’s some beautiful looking fault rock there…

Core drilled for a proposed pumped hydroelectric storage facility "on the shores of Loch Lochy, beneath the Great Glen", which is the platonic ideal of Scottish locations.

So happy to announce our new preprint, “A geothermal amoeba sets a new upper temperature limit for eukaryotes.” We cultured a novel amoeba from Lassen Volcanic NP (CA, USA) that divides at 63°C (145°F) 🔥 - a new record for euk growth!
#protistsonsky 🧵

⚒️ Showing that rock fracturing from even relatively small earthquakes can generate the geochemical gradients essential for life has interesting potential implications for life on early Earth and on other planets. Very cool!

Wildfire particles and water being injected into stratosphere by “overshooting” storms: in increasing amounts, and higher up, as climate change generates more fires and more powerful storms.

No-one knows yet exactly what effect this will have, but it will have one…

AI’s water problem is worse than we thought A new investigation reveals how Amazon is amplifying Oregon’s nitrate pollution crisis.

Everyone knows data centers use a ton of water.

What hardly anyone knows: they can poison the water that remains.

And in eastern Oregon, Amazon is doing exactly that.

Text Shot: "We detected gamma rays with a photon energy of 20 gigaelectronvolts (or 20 billion electronvolts, an extremely large amount of energy) extending in a halolike structure toward the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The gamma-ray emission component closely matches the shape expected from the dark matter halo," said Totani. The observed energy spectrum, or range of gamma-ray emission intensities, matches the emission predicted from the annihilation of hypothetical WIMPs, with a mass approximately 500 times that of a proton.

🧪 If this observation holds up, I think it’s the first direct signal we’ve detected of a dark matter particle (rather than indirectly inferring their existence from gravitational effects. Exciting!

I wonder if it’s consistent with what we (haven’t) seen at the LHC…

phys.org/news/2025-11-y…

OK - pie discourse - best pie story:

In 2016, we were living in Andover, in the UK. My wife was assigned as an exchange officer at the Army Air Corps base at Middle Wallop (yes, really).*

The US Army has a tradition: senior leaders, in dress uniform, serve junior troops Thanksgiving dinner.

/1

If you can afford £30/$40 or more, you have a chance to snag a copy of one of the very pretty sketches prepared to illustrate Hutton's "Theory of the Earth", but never published. I especially like the one of Arran (number 18), but plenty of other temptations!

It looks like access has already been improved since I last visited (when you parked by a vegetable farm and clambered over fences), but some proper interpretative signage would be a real boon.

⚒️ Here's a worthy geoheritage cause; the Scottish Geology Trust is running a crowdfunding campaign for a "Deep Time Trail" at Siccar Point ahead of the 300th anniversary of James Hutton's Birth next year. 4 days left to contribute!

A Neandertal recipe with lentils and grain Looking at a fascinating new study that finds mixtures of different plants within ancient morsels of charred foods.

Coming together to eat the food we share has been part of humanity from the very beginning. I wrote this post after a Thanksgiving week lecture on evidence for Neanderthals and other ancient people making prepared mixtures of grains, lentils, and other foods.

www.johnhawks.net/p/a-neandert...

A colourful map showing the location of the M5.9 Saguenay, Quebec earthquake of November 25, 1988. The colours indicate how strong the shaking was, with strong shaking within ~500 km (Quebec City, Montreal, #Ottawa) and shaking was felt to more than 1000 km (Toronto, Detroit, Boston, NYC, and Halifax).

November 25, 1988 - a reminder of damaging #earthquakes in eastern Canada. A M5.9 earthquake rocked #Québec. Felt strongly within ~500 km (Quebec City, Montreal, #Ottawa) and felt to more than 1000 km (Toronto, Detroit, Boston, NYC, and Halifax):
www.earthquakescanada.nrcan.gc.ca/historic-his...
⚒️🧪

It has gotten measurably worse over the last 2 or 3 months.

I stopped using Google very much because of the deterioration in its basic usefulness, but personally I don’t want to spend time worrying over what AI may or may not be doing.