Monday 11 May 2026 at 2p Eastern (11a Pacific)

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I gave a talk to an Oakland group the other day that discussed three geology-related topics: quarries, landslides and earthquakes. Landslides were the hardest topic to condense. This post will serve as a home page for things I've posted a couple dozen times over the years on this blog.

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The complete specimen of Laueropterus. Yes, it's new pterosaur time again and indeed it's another Moernseim non-pterodactyloid monofenestratan. Following on from the description and naming of both Skiphosoura and Makrodactylus, this time out t...

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Starting in early April, NASA satellites began to detect a patch of brownish, blue-green water lingering off the coasts of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The colors and patterns were most intense in the shallow coastal zone where the waters of Raritan Bay, Delaware Bay, and Chesapeake Bay merged with the Atlantic Ocean--an area known as the Mid-Atlantic Bight. 

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The Barelas (aka "Little Ditch") was running when I rode up to its heading this morning. Hardly ever see that. It's a favorite. Guy walking his dog told me the Farmers Almanac says we're gonna have a wet summer. Epistemologically solid.

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NASA and SpaceX are targeting a mid-May launch to deliver scientific investigations, supplies, and equipment to the International Space Station. 

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Very belatedly, I come to an email from Joe Parish, who on 8 March -- a full month ago -- emailed me to draw my attention to a life reconstruction of Camarasaurus that was published in 1880: one year earlier than the 1886 "atlantosaur" by Jules Blanadet that we thought was the oldest.

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Kieran Wilson, LINK's principal investigator at Katalyst Space Technologies in Flagstaff, Ariz., and Hunter Robertson, a space systems engineer at Katalyst, stand next to their spacecraft inside the SES (Space Environment Simulator) at NASA's God...

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How things in space get their names, progress and awards for Saving NASA Science, and the human side of Artemis II....

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Incidentally GTA6 is coming out in November and apparently it cost $1 billion to make.

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Carved over millennia by the pressure and motion of glacial ice, the valley walls cradling the Tracy Arm fjord in southeast Alaska continue to be reshaped. In summer 2025, following the rapid retreat of South Sawyer Glacier, a large landslide sent rock careening into the fjord, altering the wider landscape in a matter of minutes.

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Campbell Award winner Marina Saguar Urquiola is helping to solve climate change through adaptation finance....

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A thin sliver of Earth's edge is brightly illuminated against the vast darkness of space in this April 3, 2026, image taken during the Artemis II mission. Artemis II was the first crewed flight in a series of missions to test NASA's human deep space capabilities, paving the way for future lunar surface missions.

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Over the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica, winds can whip around the globe relatively unimpeded by land. Intrepid sailors termed these southern latitudes the Roaring Forties, Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties on account of the strong prevailing winds.

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I was sitting on the front porch early this afternoon with my eyes on the street when the postman come up the front walk holding a book-shaped package. I walked up to him, reached out, and held it in my hands.

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The study also points to broader lessons: as glaciers retreat in warming regions, the risk of related hazards can increase, and improved monitoring may help reduce some of those dangers....

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A new "X-ray dot" found by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory - which could look like this artist's illustration released on April 28, 2026 - could explain what the hundreds or potentially thousands of these objects are.

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Shivelyuch (also called Shiveluch), the most northerly active volcano on the Kamchatka Peninsula, is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. On a near-daily basis, satellites detect new signs of activity within its horseshoe-shaped caldera, including thermal anomalies, hot avalanches and debris flows, and ash deposits that darken the surrounding landscape.

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For my birthday this year, my wife bought me the newish Lego kit Natural History Museum 10326. (Well: actually she bought me a Chinese knock-off for 1/3 the price, but that's not the point.) It's a lovely kit and I had a great time building it.

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This series of images shows NASA's Curiosity Mars rover as it got a rock stuck to the drill on the end of its robotic arm and, after waving the arm and running the drill a few times, finally detached the rock. The imagery showing the entire process was captured by the black-and-white hazard cameras on the front of Curiosity's chassis and by navigation cameras on its mast, or head.

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Columbia Climate School is thrilled to announce that Melanie Nakagawa, Chief Sustainability Officer at Microsoft, will deliver the keynote address at the Climate School's Class Day ceremony....

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Nota bene: A guest post from friends of Inkstain John Berggren and Kevin Wheeler John Berggren (Regional Policy Manager, Western Resource Advocates) Kevin Wheeler (Principle, Water Balance Consulting) 5/5/2026 As everyone is well aware, the snowp...

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Volcanic activity takes on many forms in western El Salvador. The land near the city of Ahuachapán is pockmarked with craters and covered with recent lava flows. Meanwhile, a geothermal field feeds geysers, heats mineral pools, and powers a long-operating energy plant. The area is part of a volcanic landscape that stretches more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) along the Pacific coast from Guatemala to Panama, composing the Central American Volcanic Arc. 

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The primary goal of the FLAG SAG is to develop a coherent framework for comparing and assessing gamma-ray mission architectures. Within this framework, the SAG will:

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