Wildfires are in the news lately, but if you were in the Hailar Basin, Inner Mongolia during the Early Cretaceous (~100 million years ago) you’d find yourself in a lot of smoke! Even though it was tough times for vegetation, the palaeomires were able to accumulate incredible thicknesses of peat – enough to make 70 […]
On the 7th of June, 9pm Brisbane, Australia time I’ll be giving an invited lecture on some of the palaeoclimate, palaeovegetation and palaeotectonic studies we’ve been doing in the Hailar Basin, Inner Mongolia, China. This is for The Society for Organic Petrology. Read the abstract for the talk below. It’s ONLINE and Open to All! […]
Abstracts have been submitted, short course arranged and we are ready to roll! It’s VIRTUAL and virtually free. Come join us: its only the price of TSOP membership for one year (that is, $US25 for professionals and $US15 for students). For more information check out the meeting website at: https://tsop.org/TSOP2022/index.html Between the 12th and 16th […]
It’s a Virtual Meeting you shouldn’t miss! And it’s FREE to all TSOP members – if you are not a member, it still will only cost you the price of joining TSOP for a year ($US25 for professionals and $US15 for students). Check out the meeting website: https://tsop.org/TSOP2022/index.html The Society for Organic Petrology (TSOP) is […]
Of all the particles in a sedimentary basin, organics are arguably the most insightful. Think about it: they tell you how hot things got, millions and millions of years ago, and that is both within the basin at depth but also at the surface when they were deposited; they tell you what plants were evolving; […]
The 39th Annual Meeting of The Society for Organic Petrology will be held in Bogotá, Colombia in September 2022. Colombia is known for many things of course – its divine coffee, the incredible hospitality of its people, the range of climates and the beautiful Andes. But what most people don’t know is that under that lovely exterior […]
Yes, I know. Normally the words ‘blue skies’ and ‘Beijing’ aren’t in such close proximity. Yet, when I was there just a couple of weeks ago, it was indeed blue skies. Warm, yes; smoggy, not really. Though I was inside much of the time … I was in the captivating capital of China for the […]
Why does Indonesia have so much coal? This might be like asking why is the sky blue? – but, like that question, it is fundamental and few seem to have considered it. A new paper by Mike Friederich, Tim Moore and Romeo Flores (“A regional review and new insights into SE Asian Cenozoic coal-bearing sediments: […]
The morning was smoky and hazy as we made our way to the docks from the hotel. A forecasted El Niño year was already being felt in East Kalimantan (Borneo) as evidenced by the fires through out the region. Still, we were all looking forward to going out on the infamous (at least in geological […]
We sped across the surface of Lake Semayang with the bottom only inches below us. Using traditional long boats – with light but powerful engines – twenty-seven of us were headed for Semayang village, on the north central ‘coast’ of the lake. We were there as part of a geological field trip examining modern environments […]