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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin

@ichnologist.bsky.social

7K followers 770 following 2.3K posts

Traces & trace fossils. Wrote 'Life Sculpted' (2023), 'Dinosaurs Without Bones' (2014), 'The Evolution Underground' (2017), & more. Hubby, Trekkie, reading, cooking, craft-beer imbibing, childless cat dude. https://ajmartinauthor.com

ajmartinauthor.com

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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · Aug 21

Hello Bluesky science appreciators! I'm a geologist, paleontologist, & (most importantly) an ichnologist, which means I study modern traces (tracks, burrows, etc.) & trace fossils. I teach undergrad students in environmental sciences, write books about ichnology, & do lots of public outreach. 🧪🪨⚒️🐾🦕🦖

Alligator tracks on a beach, showing the direction of movement by a large alligator from the lower part of the beach and up to its dunes, with a prominent sinuous tail drag in its middle and front-rear track pairs on either side. I am squatting to the left of the tracks, wearing a hat, sunglasses, shirt, shorts, and sandals. Tracks were on Sapelo Island, Georgia (USA).

Cover of my latest book LIFE SCULPTED (2023, U. of Chicago Press), with black background and cut section of a grayish tree trunk as its central image, in which the trunk has many borings made by insects and fungi. The book title and subtitle at the top of the cover says, "LIFE SCULPTED: Tales of the Animals, Plants, and Fungi that Drill, Break, and Scrape to Shape the Earth," and my author name (Anthony J. Martin) is in the lower right corner.

Sauropod dinosaur tracks evident as semi-circular depressions in a slanted sandstone surface, with me wearing a broad-brimmed hat while sitting next to the tracks on that surface and facing downslope. Tracks were in a Jurassic formation in southern Portugal.

Rear view of a camera crew (two people) filming me in the atrium of Fernbank Museum of Natural History in Atlanta, GA (USA), with me sitting and partial views of dinosaur skeletons in the background, which are replicas of Argentinosaurus (left) and Gigantosaurus (right), dinosaurs that lived in what is now Argentina about 100 million years ago.

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Steve Brusatte @stevebrusatte.bsky.social · 9h

Walking in the footsteps of…giant Carboniferous trees?

Some 325 million years ago these coal swamp trees were so heavy they made ‘tree prints’ in the soft coral-infused limestone under the soil.

And today we saw them on our University of Edinburgh undergrad trip to Barns Ness!

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Andrew Alden @geology.bsky.social · 11h

New blog post: geology is all around, everywhere and for everyone.

Geologizing on the bus: The 18 line

Most of my geologizing around Oakland is on foot, with the help of the Citymapper phone app and all manner of public transit, which I’ve praised before. In fact, I’ve written a whole co…

oaklandgeology.com

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Jen Bendery @jbendery.bsky.social · 14h

Happy Indigenous Peoples' Day.

Here's Deb Haaland in 2019, saying why, to her, changing the name of today's federal holiday from Columbus Day to Indigenous Peoples' Day isn't about erasing history at all. It's about correcting history.

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Kimberly Atkins Stohr @kimberlyeatkins.bsky.social · 16h

Today is a great day to watch this beautiful PBS piece on the Taíno people

youtu.be/kpX6dpC5MQg?...

Are the Taino extinct? This woman knows otherwise | PBS

YouTube video by PBS

youtu.be

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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 14h

Atlanta GA has a group of older women (all 50+, mostly boomers) called The Dancing Flowers for Peace who dress up in green-and-yellow leotards, tu-tus, make-up, & flower headdresses, & they dance together at protest marches & human rights festivals. I think they've done this since the early 2000s.

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Jeanne Timmons @mostlymammoths.bsky.social · 15h

6pm tonight EDT (if I'm getting the time zones correct) 🧪🧬

Te Ara Paerangi Com - Research Advocacy Capability @te-ara-paerangi.community · 6d

We'd love to have a huge turn out for Nic's talk. Please help spread the word. There are downloadable pdf adverts in the link below. They can be emailed or printed. If you work in a public space (e.g. Library) you could help by printing and posting one of the flyers. Ngā mihi nui!

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Lance Richardson @lancerichardson.bsky.social · 18h

Reviewed in The New Yorker.

Peter Matthiessen Travelled the World, Trying to Escape Himself

He was a spy, a crusader, an obsessive advocate for neglected people and places—yet his work was shaped, too, by an inner crisis.

www.newyorker.com

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Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · 15h

🧪🐡👩🏼‍🔬 sharing #womenInSTEM #histSci for Ada Lovelace Day

#AdaLovelaceDay #ald25

Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · Jul 30

Happy birthday to #geologist & oceanographic #cartographer Marie Tharp (1920-2006), whose pioneering, thorough & complete ocean floor maps with Bruce Heezen, made using realms of echo sounder data, revealed the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.⁠ 🧪🐡 #WomenInSTEM
⁠
After studying #geology and math,…

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My linocut portrait of Marie Tharp (woman in grey shirt with oversized glasses and red hair in up-do) in front of her physiographic of the Atlantic (in grey on teal) with mid-ocean ridge, resting her cheek on her left hand with elbow on table covered with depth sounder data.

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New Scientist @newscientist.com · 18h

In her new book, earth scientist Anjana Khatwa writes a love letter to Earth's rocks and mountains, offering a passionate blend of science and spirituality

The Whispers of Rock is a personal journey through aeons of geology

In her new book, earth scientist Anjana Khatwa writes a love letter to Earth's rocks and mountains, offering a passionate blend of science and spirituality

www.newscientist.com

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Hope Jahren @realhopejahren.bsky.social · 18h

Quote block: “Public and private organizations all over the world have studied the mechanics of sexism within science and have concluded that they are complex and multifactorial. In my own small experience, sexism has been something very simple: the cumulative weight of constantly being told that you can’t possibly be what you are.”
― Hope Jahren, Lab Girl

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Andrew D Thaler @drandrewthaler.bsky.social · 18h

You don't have to judge Columbus by the standards of today. His tenure as governor of Hispaniola was so horrific that he was dragged back to Spain in chains to answer for his many crimes.

Plus he never set foot on any land that would ever be a part of the United States of America.

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Dan Killam @dantheclamman.blog · 1d

Brachiopods once were the dominant invert group, but after the Permian-Triassic extinction, bivalves began to run the show. There are 100s of brachs alive, but >20,000 species of bivalves by some counts! Brachs to me are the elves of invert paleo. A noble race reminding us of a better age. (302)

Fig from Guo et al 2023, showing how brachiopod diversity crashed around 250 million years ago after peaking during the Permian, while bivalves show a slow steady increase over the record, except for one small crash in the end-Cretaceous extinction

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Bingcai Liu @bingcailiu.bsky.social · 1d

Excited to share our research on the evolution of fossil forests from the Devonian to Jurassic! By analyzing 38 global fossil forests, we explored key parameters to better understand how these fossil forests developed over time.

doi.org/10.1016/j.ea...

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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 2d

Fall break at my uni, so spouse & I went to Savannah & Tybee Island (GA) for the weekend. Visited Jepson/Telfair Art Museum in Savannah & we were wowed by exhibit of maritime artwork by William O. Golding (1874-1943), but animated for display. 🌊⚓️🎨

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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 3d

I watched one of our cats at home do this on a carpet 2 days ago & thought, "Huh, that'd make for an interesting trace fossil." From this alone I learned that trace fossil dreams can come true.

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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 3d

You can always bet on butt-related trace fossils to go viral. 😎Congrats, & thanks for posting this story!

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Anthony (Tony) J. Martin @ichnologist.bsky.social · 3d

126,000 year-old rock-hydra post-defecation butt-drag trace fossil (in rock) FTW! Reason #1,257 why ichnology rules! 🧪🐾🪨💩

Silvia Pineda-Munoz, PhD - Climate Ages @climateages.bsky.social · 3d

A 126,000-year-old butt-drag just made fossil history.
A tiny rock hyrax scooted across the sand of ancient South Africa, and that moment was preserved in stone.

Even the smallest acts can echo through time.
🧪 #SciComm
buff.ly/dcGWTR4

The 126,000-Year-Old Butt-Drag That Rewrote What Counts as a Fossil

How a small animal’s odd habit turned into one of the most unexpected stories ever preserved in stone Some discoveries make headlines because they’re dramatic: new...

climateages.com

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Erika Anderson @andersonmineral.bsky.social · 3d

The fierce carnivore Inostrancevia is one of the species of synapsids that went extinct in the Great Dying, known as the Permian-Triassic Extinction event. #FossilFriday ⚒️🧪

Mounted skeleton of fossil Inostrancevia with its body facing left. It’s skull shows large saver like teeth. It stands on a bed of shale fragments on a plinth with red plexiglass behind it. At the Royal Ontario Museum.

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Ausarchosaur @ausarchosaur.bsky.social · 3d

I know everyone in the online paleontology community and their mother knows this fossil at this point, but I don't think we appreciate how insane it is that there was an actual, real predator that BIT OFF THE HORNS OF ITS PREY. WHILE IT WAS ALIVE. #FossilFriday

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Dr Suresh Singh @palaeosingh.bsky.social · 3d

A couple snapshots of an ancient apex predator for this #FossilFriday - presenting the fossil teeth & snout of an #Erythrosuchus africanus, the big-headed, hypercarnivorous archosauromorph from the Early-Mid #Triassic of South Africa 🇿🇦

#Paleontology #Science

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Isolated teeth of Erythrosuchus africanus from the collections of the Natural History Museum UK.

The tip of the snout of Erythrosuchus africanus from the collections of the Natural History Museum UK.

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Science Friday @scifri.bsky.social · 3d

Happy Science Friday! Here’s what we’re covering today on the show. Listen on your local public radio station, 2-4 p.m. ET. 🦋☀️

Learn more here: buff.ly/sHPBDCP

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Rachel Ignotofsky @rachelignotofsky.bsky.social · 3d

I made a video about my new book: DINOSAURS
Watch here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVy8...

Publishing this Tuesday! grab your copy here: rachelignotofskydesign.com/dinosaurs

#dinosaurs #paleoart #fossilladdict #sciart #evolution

Dinosaurs: Exploring Prehistoric Life and Geological Time

YouTube video by Rachel Ignotofsky

www.youtube.com

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Ausarchosaur @ausarchosaur.bsky.social · 10d

A large theropod (probably tyrannosaur) track from Nose Mountain, Alberta shows the fourth digit twisted such that half of the toe was folded underneath the rest.

They ask you how you are and you just have to say that you're fine when you're not really fine. #FossilFriday

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Left-Natural-cast-of-a-large-theropod-track-from-the-Late-Cretaceous_fig27_278667086

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Jeremy Lockwood @valdosaurus.bsky.social · 3d

For #FossilFriday some iguanodontian dorsal vertebrae with ossified tendons which would have formed a crisscross pattern. First appeared Late Jurassic associated with increased mass and quadrupedality. From #IsleofWight in the collections of @nhm-london.bsky.social.

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Dr Susannah Lydon @susieoftraken.bsky.social · 3d

A 300 million year old Sigillaria tree trunk, in front of a mural depicting those steamy Carboniferous coal swamp forests.

On display in Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid.

#FossilFriday ⚒🌏🌱🧪🌿🔬

A Sigillaria tree trunk, in front of a mural depicting the Carboniferous swamp forest. About 1.75 m tall

On display in Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid.

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