Category Archives: public science

Golden spike or no golden spike – we are living in the Anthropocene

Posted on March 7, 2024 by Chris Rowan

This is not going to go well. After 15 years of discussion and exploration…Twelve members of the International Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) voted against the proposal to create an Anthropocene epoch, while only four voted for it. To be … Continue reading →

Categories: climate crisis, deep time, geology, public science, society

Obsessing over the Anthropocene’s “golden spike” misses the point of the Anthropocene

Posted on December 13, 2022 by Chris Rowan

This is a good write-up of the latest step in the long and somewhat contentious process of making the Anthropocene “official”: In the same week as the world’s population ticked over to 8 billion people, the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) began … Continue reading →

Categories: geology, public science, ranting

Content warnings when talking about disasters on social media

Posted on November 10, 2022 by Chris Rowan

Like many others as Twitter continues its apparent spiral towards death eternally gridlocked dysfunction, I have been testing the waters on the distributed social network Mastodon. So far, I’ve been quite enjoying it, but it has been a big system shock … Continue reading →

Categories: bloggery, geohazards, public science, society

The Cuyahoga River burned today for the first time in 51 years. Here’s what we can learn from it.

Posted on August 25, 2020 by Anne Jefferson

How many of you had “Cuyahoga River catches fire” on your 2020 bingo card? Yet that’s what happened today.  A tanker-car collision/fire near the Cuyahoga River in Akron this morning spilled burning fuel into a storm sewer and then the … Continue reading →

Categories: by Anne, environment, geohazards, geology, hydrology, public science, society

Announcing STORMS

Posted on June 16, 2018 by Anne Jefferson

I’m pleased to announce that I’m leading a new multi-institution NSF-funded project investigating how stormwater decision making translates to environmental outcomes at the watershed scale. I’m collaborating with Aditi Bhaskar (Colorado State University), Kelly Turner (UCLA), and Dave Costello (Kent … Continue reading →

Categories: by Anne, environment, hydrology, public science, society