By John C. Menzies and Eugene J. LynchApril 4, 2025 On a clear, dark night, far from city lights, the Milky Way Galaxy stretches across the sky like a luminous river of stars, gas, and dust. This glowing band, a partial view of our galaxy’s spiral structure, is a breathtaking »
As someone deeply invested in the purity of scientific inquiry, particularly Earth sciences, I’ve been watching with growing concern the politicization of once-revered journals. Today, we’re diving into Gondwana Research, a flagship publication in geoscience known for its rigorous exploration of ancient supercontinents, tectonics, and paleontology. Established in 1997 and »
Summary August 10, 2025: Drone attacks, stalled export negotiations, and unpaid salaries continue to challenge the Kurdistan Region of Iraq’s (KRI) oil and gas industry, yet ambitious commercial investments and international mediation offer hope for recovery. The KRI faces persistent security risks, financial disputes with the Iraqi Federal Government (IFG)in »
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post. »
Review of the Proposed Revised JORC Code Executive Summary August 12, 2025: The Australasian Code for Reporting Exploration Results, Mineral Resources, and Ore Reserves (JORC Code), first released in 1989 and updated in 2012, is undergoing a major revision. The 2024 draft, released on August 1, 2024 for public consultation »
Thursday, August 7, 2025: A new study in BMC Biology examines the leg mobility of the Trilobite, Olenoides serratus from the Burgess Shale, revealing how these ancient creatures navigated their seafloor world differently from modern relatives like horseshoe crabs. Trilobites are a group of euarthropods that were a major component »
August 5, 2025: A study published in Communications Earth & Environment provides evidence for a transition in Earth’s thermal regime at approximately 3.9 billion years ago (Ga), based on geochemical analysis of zircon grains from the Jack Hills, Western Australia. This shift from exogenic (impact-driven) to endogenic (internally driven) thermal »
July 28,2025: The conflict over oil exports from the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRG) is rooted in constitutional ambiguities regarding authority over oil and gas management, leading to disputes between the Iraqi Federal Government (IFG) and the KRG. The IFG asserts sole authority over oil policy and exports, while the »
Pekisko Overview & Production History July 25, 2025: The Pekisko Formation, from the Mississippian period, consists mainly of platform and ramp carbonates and shales. It generally exhibits low porosity, which is improved along its eastern subcrop edge due to karstification. Hydrocarbon traps are commonly found in isolated structures, such as »
Introduction: The History and Scope of H.R. 1 H.R. 1 2025, also referred to as the “H.R.1 – One Big Beautiful Bill Act” is a flagship piece of Trump legislation passed by the 119th Congress of the United States in 2025. Historically, the designation “H.R. 1” is reserved for bills considered »
Gunther Kletetschka’s 2025 paper, Three-Dimensional Time: A Mathematical Framework for Fundamental Physics, published in Reports in Advances of Physical Science – simply redefines time! Time is not one-dimensional. It spans three dimensions. This creates a six-dimensional manifold—three temporal, three spatial. The goal? Unify quantum mechanics and gravity. Explain the three »
I have a Acer Predator Helios 300 PH315-52-74PR and recently purchased an MSI PRO MP161 E2 external monitor. The monitor would not power up with mini-HDMI and reported no HDMI data when connected via USB-C. This is not uncommon but there is a simple solution. The key takeaway is that »
The Resolution Copper mine, a joint venture between Rio Tinto (55%) and BHP (45%), targets one of the world’s largest untapped copper deposits near Superior, Arizona. As it advances, the project promises significant economic and strategic benefits but faces a complex landscape of community support and opposition, with its fate »
A contribution by Michelle Grantcharova (Grant Geoscience) and John C Menzies. Michelle has been working on minerals exploration in the Iberian Pyrite Belt on advanced projects and is developing a considerable depth of knowledge of this important VHMS province. Incidentally, Michelle is my daughter-geologist. This is a work in progress »
A Bold First Step Here is a series of edited prompts that will guide you through your mental clutter, explore your darkest fears, delineate your current working habits, your current framework of accountability and define your most important goals. Then you will generate a Bold Action Plan consistent with your »
The Vuggy Silica/Quartz textural atlas has been updated. Vuggy silica textures are formed by the dissolution of phenocrysts and clasts by hot and strongly acidic fluids that are generated during the cooling and crystallization of near surface intrusive bodies. Vuggy silica is often mineralized but is also a strong indicator »
A new study by Tina Lüdecke and colleagues provides a critical analysis of the dietary habits of Australopithecus at Sterkfontein Cave, challenging long-held assumptions about the role of meat consumption in hominin evolution. The research is based on a novel approach that utilizes nitrogen and carbon isotope analysis of tooth »
An interesting paper in Science by Daniele Bertacca and colleagues discusses a new model for the early universe that challenges the traditional inflationary paradigm, which relies on a hypothetical “inflaton” field. Instead, this model proposes that gravitational waves, arising from quantum fluctuations within an expanding universe, are responsible for creating »
The Roman Empire, a civilization whose power and influence once spanned the known world, ultimately succumbed to a variety of pressures, but a major factor in its decline was the combination of unchecked deficit spending and the unsustainable growth of its government. The Roman state, compelled to finance a vast »
January 4th, 2025: This post investigates the cause of crustal-scale electrical conductivity anomalies observed in magnetotelluric (MT) imaging of mineral provinces, specifically in the Olympic Dam region of Australia and the Southeast Missouri Iron Province (SMIP) in the United States and is derived from and a review of Graphite as »
1st January 2025: This is a reflection on pivotal events in human history 100 years ago – 1924. This was a pivotal year in many ways, but much remains the same in human affairs, particulalry the chaos of politics. The most significant event in science in 1924 was the proof »
28th December 2024, John C. Menzies: This post is a review of a paper on the impact of mantle oxidation and transport of gold rich fluids from the mantle to the near surface. Overall, this study demonstrates that mantle oxidation by S–bearing aqueous fluids is a key trigger mechanism for »
25th December 2024: The menu for Christmas Day. On schedule and as expected, a fine time was had by all. »
Mantle flow in subduction systems and its effects on surface tectonics and magmatism, Valentina Magni, Ágnes Király, Colton Lynner, Pilar Avila & James Gi, Nature Reviews, Earth and Environmental, 2024 doi.org/10.1038/s43017-024-00612-3 This review article examines the complex interplay between subduction dynamics, mantle flow, and their resulting expressions on Earth’s surface. »
In early writing, words were not separated by spaces, a format known as scriptura continua. Scribes wrote without breaks between words, reflecting the way language was originally spoken. Just as we don’t pause between every word when we speak, early writers didn’t think to insert spaces between words when writing. »
Craton margins: Craton margins are dipping discontinuities, wedge-shaped crustal and lithospheric geometries where younger, weaker rocks collide with stronger, older craton rocks. They can be found in locations with high topography, higher metamorphic grade, and boundaries or transitions in lithospheric geometry found in geophysical data. There are two types of »
Rajendra Gupta from the University of Ottawa published a paper in the Astrophysical Journal based on a modified Lambda CDM + TL model which suggests an age of the universe since the Big Bang of 26.7 Gyr as compared with the consensus view of 13.8 Gyr. Given that zircon age »
“Subsurface Microbial Colonization at Mineral-Filled Veins in 2-Billion-Year-Old Mafic Rock from the Bushveld Igneous Complex, South Africa,” focuses on the examination of microbial life in ancient igneous rocks from the Bushveld Igneous Complex in South Africa. The study investigates the possibility of long-term microbial survival in stable subsurface environments over »
Emily J. Judd, Jessica E. Tierney, Daniel J. Lunt, Isabel P. Montañez, Brian T. Huber, Scott L. Wing, Paul J. Valdes, Science. DOI: 10.1126/science.adk3705 An interesting approach to palaeo-temperature modelling – produced by assimilating observational data during the last 485 million years with climate model predictions. This paper introduces a »
Authors Pearl Connelly & Lynley Wallis Purchase: Mitakoodi Traditional Medicinal Plant Uses of the Cloncurry Region can be purchased on-line Most photos are the copyright of Pearly Connelly & Lynley Wallis The country around Cloncurry comprises the traditional lands of the Mitakoodi People. In this book, Mitakoodi Elder Pearl Connelly teams »
