Dr. Gabe Eggers
LightNews LightNews
banner
gabeeggers.bsky.social
Dr. Gabe Eggers
@gabeeggers.bsky.social
1.1K followers 550 following 1.4K posts
Upjumped farmboy from Missouri. Visiting Professor at Wesleyan University interested in volcanism of Venus, Earth, Mars, etc. #FirstGen. Do good recklessly. He/Him.
Posts Replies Media Videos
gabeeggers.bsky.social
I should really refigure my lecture schedule so that we cover "Remote Sensing of Water" in early November.
Screenshot of a PowerPoint slide. The title says "Sonar: When the Gales of November Came Early." The slide has a single sonar image showing a near surface depth transect of the Lake Superior seafloor. Buried in the lake sediment is a ship, the Edmund Fitzgerald, broken into two pieces.
November 26, 2025 at 7:19 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
There's not a day that I don't dream of having a Wib's hot combo with fries.
A typical meal from Wib's Drive-In in Jackson, MO. The centerpiece is a combination sandwich (smoked pork with pimento cheese and slathered with liberal amounts of hot BBQ sauce on toast) and it is accompanied by golden straight fries in a white sleeve and a red place of two mozzarella sticks (apparently they have these?). It is all on a red tray covered by a red-and-white checkered sheet.
November 19, 2025 at 1:58 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
Did the thing!

Also, my polling location is in an elementary school, and the PTA always has a bake sale going as you leave after voting. Picked up some coffee and Nonna's coffee cake!
A round "I voted" sticker still on the paper that says "I VOTED TODAY." The sticker is divided into red, white, and blue horizontal strips with one word each. White stars ring the edges of the red and blue strips. My hand holding a small loaf of brown coffee cake. It is in a tin loaf pan and wrapped in plastic cling wrap. On it is a white sticker with "Nonna's Coffee Cake" written in light blue marker.
November 4, 2025 at 4:56 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
During grad seminar today, I told the students that I would dress up if they dressed up.

Presenting: Dr. Eggman
Selfie of me in a Dr. Eggman (aka, Dr. Robotnik) from the Sonic video games. I am wearing a red shirt with a yellow vest-type thing. I have a poorly fit bald cap on with blue-tinted, circular glasses and a red mustache, slightly askew, that flairs out horizontally. I am standing in a classroom with gloves and rocks.
October 31, 2025 at 10:44 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
Whew, it's been a busy day! But I found a little time yesterday before lab to put together the third specimen: fluorite!
A Lego representation of the mineral fluorite sitting on a wooden stand, also made of Lego. The fluorite is made of a large half-cube, tilted, made of translucent light blue. Growing off of it are smaller cubes of dark blue. An actual mineral specimen of fluorite. It is formed of equally-sized large cubes that interlock at different angles. The cubes are a translucent light blue but have dark blue-to-purple cores.
October 24, 2025 at 5:30 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
On today, the last day of fall break, I constructed the second specimen: watermelon tourmaline!
LEGO version of watermelon tourmaline standing in a brown display case, also made of LEGO. The LEGO model is a vertically oriented crystal that is translucent green on the bottom grading into pink at the top with some yellow as well. Actual specimen of watermelon tourmaline. A person holds a small, vertical crystal in their fingers. The crystal is a dark red on the bottom that transitions to green and to clear with a pinkish hue. It invokes the coloration of a watermelon.
October 21, 2025 at 7:26 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
I was feeling down and stressed this weekend, so I got the LEGO Mineral Collection set as a...stress relief activity, we'll say.

Anyway, here is the first specimen: pyrite!
A specimen of pyrite reproduced as LEGO. The form is of golden cubes stuck together, some emerging at unexpected angles. It sits on a brown stand, also made of LEGO. And actual specimen of pyrite formed of smooth, golden-hued metallic cubes. It sits embedded on a tan-and-gray rock.
October 20, 2025 at 8:02 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
I made a joke during lecture this week that we were doing "applied quantum mechanics," and I got some laughs!
A chalkboard showing a diagram in various colors of chalk. Visually, it shows an 8-petal rosette with alternating purple petals with green-outlined ones. It is surrounded by text annotation. Briefly, the diagram shows the the intersection of transition metal d orbitals with the XY-plane. It is illustrating the "splitting" of the orbitals due to the atom (iron, or Fe) being coordinated (i.e., surrounded) by six oxygen atoms (though only 4 in this XY cross-section). If you want to know more, just ask.
October 10, 2025 at 5:40 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
Y'all, I know I don't do as much Earth remote sensing, but Landsat truly is a beautiful and important program.
Landsat 9 satellite image (path 23, row 43) acquired on September 29, 2025. It shows a green, forested expanse with brown fields to the south. Two thin, dark blue rivers join together into one. A few spots of white clouds are seen. The scene is southeastern Missouri (and southern Illinois and western Kentucky) where I grew up!
October 3, 2025 at 7:29 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
Less than an hour left, #kyanite gang!
October 1, 2025 at 11:12 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
Getting the groupchat invested in the #MinCup25 final.

Vote #kyanite!
Red person: TUGTUPITE CAN KICK ROCKS [2 surfboard dog reacts, 1 heart] Blue person: I'm not worried about that. Feels good to be on the winning team for once. [3 surfboard dog reacts] Blue person: OMFG KYANITE IS DOWN BY 1 NOW [2 crying reacts]
October 1, 2025 at 8:10 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
It is the Year of our Lord 2025, and I am *begging* people to learn not to reply-all to a listserv with 1000+ people to request removal.

Reply to the one person or the admin, both on the email. OR, God forbid, read the email sent out earlier about removing yourself from the listserv!
An email conversation with the subject "Talapas Performance Issues." An icon indicates there were 33 emails sent as of 12:12 PM ET.
October 1, 2025 at 5:07 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
I've been in a fantasy football league with grad school folks since 2014. It's a lot of fun, but my favorite part is coming up with an absurd team name that doubles as a nerdy reference...

Anyway, the Winged Dragons of Amon-Ra improved to 2-2 this weekend by taking out one of the league leaders.
The NFL player Amon-Ra St. Brown is photoshopped onto the to body of the Winged Dragon of Ra from the Yu-Gi-Oh anime. The Winged Dragon is covered in flame and looks like a cross between a golden phoenix and a dragon. St. Brown's uniform has been recolored to a golden hue so that it blends with the dragon's body.
September 30, 2025 at 3:22 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
Almost time for REMOTE SENSING LAB: AFTER DARK EDITION!

How are we gonna do lab 5 in a month that requires them to go collect spectra on campus? Dunno yet!
Screenshot of the beginning of a class lab assignment. If you *really* want to read it, it goes... INTRODUCTION TO ENVI Due September 18, 2025 ENVI (the Environment for Visualizing Images) is a software program that we will utilize throughout the semester to analyze remotely sensed data from satellite and aircraft. The purpose of this lab is to introduce you to the basics of the program. STEP 1: OPENING THE PROGRAM AND DATA Wesleyan has licensed ENVI 5.6, which works on Mac and PC, and is installed on the Wesleyan image. ENVI runs in two modes: ENVI and ENVI Classic. ENVI Classic is written to emulate ENVI prior to the update to version 5. The other mode, ENVI, has a different interface that works more efficiently with ArcGIS and is what we will use in class. Data for the Remote Sensing labs is located on a university drive, which you will need to mount on whatever machine you are using.
September 11, 2025 at 9:23 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
My heart is always going to go for a fluorescing mineral! #Haüyne #MinCup25
A rock hand specimen with several minerals: hauyne, gonnardite, calcite, scapolite, and phlogopite. In this natural light image, the hauyne is the dark blue crystals. The same hand specimen as before but now under longwave UV light. The hauyne that was blue under natural light is now shining orange.
September 3, 2025 at 2:48 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
Once again yearning.

I won't say that the best part of doing grad school at Georgia Tech was being an easy train ride from #DragonCon... But it was a definite plus. #DragonCon2025
A screenshot from The Little Mermaid, showing the redhead mermaid Ariel laying on a gray rock shimmering with refracted light. Photoshopped on the rock is the golden dragon on round, purple background logo of DragonCon, a nerd pop culture convention in Atlanta, GA. Ariel is singing the line, "I wanna be where the people are."
August 29, 2025 at 3:34 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
Now, you know I love a good pun or cheeky reference... But the menu is as tacky as you might imagine.
A drink specials at a godforsaken restaurant named "MAGA Burger USA." The drinks are all bad puns or references steeped in Trump lore: A Long Night at Kamala's, Gulf of America, Not Made in China, Impeachment, The Golden Dome, Hunter's Crack, and The Border Mule.
August 8, 2025 at 7:11 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
How fun to see my backyard get a shout-out in @erikklemetti.bsky.social's Eruptions newsletter this morning!

I take students to see these volcanic units in a couple of my classes. As noted, there are some decent columns. In an outcrop of the Talcott basalt nearby, there are great pillow lavas too!
Excerpt from a mailbag edition of a newsletter on volcanoes. The text reads: "Q: When was the last time there was a volcano/volcanic eruption in New England? You have to go back a long way for the last volcanic eruptions in New England (for those of you unfamiliar, New England refers to Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine). I think the most recent volcanism would have been in the Jurassic along what is now the Connecticut River Valley. During the Triassic and Jurassic (~250 to 143 million years ago) that Atlantic Ocean began to form. The Connecticut River Valley is a failed rift arm in the breaking up of Pangaea — think of it a little like the East African Rift. Basaltic volcanism happened along the rift and that can be seen in some of the columnar basalt at in the Holyoke Mountains like Mount Tom in Massachusetts. Since then, things have been volcanically quiet in New England. Give it another maybe 50 million years and we might find volcanoes again as the Atlantic begins to close. Q: Why are volcanoes so awesome? Go ahead, you tell me where else you find molten planet?"
August 8, 2025 at 2:59 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
The cowards didn't actually go through with it.

Probably for the best. How would you even get enough??
Screenshot of a section of the article, reading "Is it really made of breast milk? To address the elephant in the room, no, Frida and OddFellows' Breast Milk Ice Cream is not made of real, human breast milk. The flavor of the ice cream is supposed to mimic it."
August 6, 2025 at 4:26 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
(I approach ever closer to my final form.)
J.R.R. Tolkien as an old man in an olive and gray three-piece suit. He is reclining against a tree on a green lawn.
August 2, 2025 at 9:09 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
We are finally having a nice weekend, so I'm spending it reading beneath a tree on a high hill*.

*a drumlin, in fact, iykyk
My point of view while reading--- In the foreground, the out of focus off-white pages of MIDDLEMARCH by George Eliot. In the midground is a sloping green hill with healthy trees surrounded by various gray tombstones: headstones, crosses, obelisks, etc. Between the foliage, a pale blue sky peeks through.
August 2, 2025 at 9:09 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
I've never considered myself a dog person (and still don't), but I do love *this* dog. Happy 3rd birthday, Bucky!

(Were the decision mine, *I* would have named him Obadiah, or Obie for short.)
An Australian Shepard dog sits on his haunches in a green, freshly cut lawn. The dog's fur is reddish-brown, mostly around his head and back, to tan further down his back and legs to white-ish on his belly. He is looking at the camera with his tongue lolling out in a big grin. The same dog as before but in a closer image. He is now looking pensively to the left, and his one visible eye is a rich golden-brown.
July 19, 2025 at 9:58 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
I still think United getting rid of service desks is dumb, but bless Agent Fairy.
Screenshot of a text exchange between me and a United service agent named Fairy where they confirm my flight rebooking.
July 17, 2025 at 12:52 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
I am eating breakfast in the house of the enemy.
A bar in O'Hare airport. Various liquors and beer taps are prominently displayed. Above the bar on a red backing reads in yellow lights: WRIGLEY FIELD HOME OF CHICAGO CUBS "Fly the W!" proclaims a marquee.
July 2, 2025 at 2:27 PM
gabeeggers.bsky.social
How I would dress if money* wasn't an issue.

*And heat
June 30, 2025 at 2:04 PM