S. Andrew Dufrane

This picture of garnet sand is what you didn’t know you needed today

Dear Congress: in eighth grade, our teacher assigned to us “Profiles in Courage”by JFK. Now is your moment.

@cwmagee doi.org/10.1016/j.chem…

Ok zircon twitter, when zircon goes metamict and gains LREE, where do those elements come from, and what is the transport mechanism? Has anyone published on this?

@Rainmaker1973 - - . . . . . . - -

The best number is 73. 73 is the 21st prime number. Its mirror (37) is the 12th and its mirror (21) is the product of multiplying 7 and 3. In binary, 73 is a palindrome, 1001001 which backwards is 1001001

@And1129 A good reminder! Should do this next week

I'm changing the oil in our ICP-MS rough pump today. Yay for routine maintenance! 👨‍🔧

Elsevier is losing editors

@RyanIckert Behind me Satan!

I find it odd that western views of what constitutes leadership ultimately revolve around money and power. Everyone dreams of being a CEO or president of an organization/university. But real leadership comes from mentoring, teaching, inspiring or helping people

When you look at zircons all day, they start to look back!

@CinTyLeeEarth Similar pose from our backyard

A Merlin in Houston. Just fanning it’s tail. This small falcon is not too common, and always a treat to find.

@RyanIckert Zirchron? I’ve received separates from them and don’t particularly like their method of packaging. Nowadays I usually just use a 1 dram glass vial and etch the sample name with a dremmel tool on the glass.

@RyanIckert You mean to say you don’t put zircon separates in an origami crane?

Universities today always talk about training the next generation of leaders, but I m skeptical. To be a real leader, one needs to have credibility in their core, speak from the heart, and believe in people. There r no shortcuts. U can’t learn that in leadership school.

Word! I’ve heard “when am I (are they) ever going use this” from students and professors who teach them way too often nytimes.com/2023/01/03/opi…

This thread… pure gold!

@CinTyLeeEarth Next will be an eider!

Another arctic bird a bit far south. This juvenile Yellow-billed Loon (note scalloped mantle) is gracing San Diego bay in California. Look at its size compared to the Common Loon. YBLs are just huge.

Since it’s now en vogue to name a geologic epoch based on what we think the rock record will look like in the future, I propose the Bezosian stage of the Anthropocene, characterized by thin, platy, and localized organic deposits thought to represent cardboard box deposition.

@Rainmaker1973 Sitting on the lanthanides and actinides…..outrageous!

This is literally a periodic table [created by Anna Clark and Nazila Alimohammdi near the North entrance of Salem Hall at Wake Forest, at Winston Salem, North Carolina: buff.ly/3FXX4wM]

@JLKavanaugh Born in Duluth shortly before it happened. It was a talked about often growing up when the ore boats would come in

@elonmusk Tu pelo es en fuego

Make “hair on fire” not just a metaphor

@CinTyLeeEarth Also one can get great U-Pb dates from columbite-tantalite group minerals

Columbite (Fe,Mn)Nb2O6, one of the main ore minerals for the rare element Niobium. Found in pegmatites. Nb is used as a steel alloy and in making superconductors