* Selected journalism
2024
“On memories.” Phoenix & Cricket. 5 2024.
2023
“2023 through a fairy door.” Phoenix & Cricket. 2023.*
“Mozart and the Tour du Mont Blanc.” Phoenix & Cricket. 7 2023.*
“Of flowers and soil.” Phoenix & Cricket. 17 7 2023.*
2022
“Using fossils to bring a river covered in concrete “back to life.” The New York Times. 17 12 2022.*
“Jixuan is a rainbow.” Phoenix & Cricket. 8 7 2022.*
“Chronicle of a story.” Phoenix & Cricket. 6 6 2022.
“Rereading One Hundred Years of Solitude.” Phoenix & Cricket. 24 4 2022.
“Phoenix & Cricket is done.” Phoenix & Cricket. 4 2022.
“Dissolving in Toxic Oceans: How an Ancient Extinction Happened.” The New York Times, 3 2 2022.
“Thank you, Ed Ricketts.” Phoenix & Cricket. 6 2021.*
“Electron Plovers.” Phoenix & Cricket. 2021.*
“Burning Fossil Fuels Helped Drive Earth’s Most Massive Extinction.” The New York Times. 6 1 2021.
“PACE Yourself.” University of California, Irvine. 2 4 2020.
“These Rocks Made a 1,000-Mile Trek. Did Dinosaurs Carry Them?” The New York Times. 9 4 2021.*
“The Arctic’s Greening, But It Won’t Save Us.” University of California, Irvine. 29 4 2021.
“Kylie McGuire Faces An Invasion.” University of California, Irvine. 9 6 2021.
“Glowing Like A Firefly.” University of California, Irvine. 10 6 2021.
“James Nowick’s Silver Penny.” University of California, Irvine. 29 6 2021.
“The Reionization of Katy Rodriguez Wimberly.” University of California, Irvine. 21 9 2021.
“The Many Identities of Kara Ward.” University of California, Irvine. 4 10 2021.
“Fossil Reveals Earth’s Oldest Known Animal Guts.” The New York Times. 10 1 2020.
“Asteroid or Volcano? New Clues to the Dinosaurs’ Demise.” The New York Times. 16 1 2020.
“Skull of Smallest Dinosaur Discovered in Amber.” The New York Times. 11 3 2020.
“Some paleontologists Seek Halt to Myanmar Amber Fossil Research.” The New York Times. 11 3 2020.*
“Scientists Find Two Mating Flies Trapped in Prehistoric Amber.” The New York Times. 2 4 2020.
“Face Masks For All.” University of California, Irvine. 16 4 2020.
“Fossil Shows Cold-Blooded Frogs Lived on Warm Antarctica.” The New York Times. 23 4 2020.
“Life Hatched From Soft Eggs, Some a Foot Long, in Dinosaur Era.” 17 6 2020.
“Going to UCI From a Distance.” University of California, Irvine. 19 6 2020.
“For Roger McWilliams, It Was About Joy.” University of California, Irvine. 15 7 2020.
“Fossil Reveals ‘One of the Cutest Dinosaurs’ Ever Found.” The New York Times. 27 8 2020.
“Paulo Brando’s Growth.” University of California, Irvine. 9 9 2020.*
“First Fossil Feather Ever Found Belonged to This Dinosaur.” 30 9 2020.
“Arianna’s long path to the stars.” University of California, Irvine. 20 10 2020.*
“Humans accidentally created new rivers in Europe.” EARTH Magazine. 17 1 2019.
“Isotope Geochemists Glimpse Earth’s Impenetrable Interior.” 1 3 2019.
“Coral Reefugees: Certain Corals Could “Outrun” Climate Change.” Scientific American. 1 4 2019.
“Ancient ‘Snowball Earth’ thawed out in a flash.” Science. 2 4 2019.
“How Seals Took to the Seas.” The New York Times. 4 4 2019.
“The Search for the Severed Head of the Himalayas.” Eos. 25 4 2019.
“Geologists Solve Mystery of Nepal’s “Earthquake Gap.” Scientific American. 1 5 2019.
“The Blob Causing Earthquakes.” Eos. 10 5 2019.
“A School of Fish, Captured in a Fossil.” The New York Times. 29 5 2019.
“Dinosaur With Bat Wings Was More Than Legend.” The New York Times. 8 5 2019.
“When Water Met Rock.” Eos. 17 5 2019.
“Hiroshima Bomb Created Asteroid Impact–Like Glass.” Eos. 28 5 2019.
“Afghanistan’s Blob Hunters.” Eos. 3 6 2019.
“The secrets of how sharks survived so many of Earth’s mass extinctions.” New Scientist. 26 6 2019.
“Latest Climate Model Points to Hotter Earth.” Eos. 28 6 2019.
“Antibiotics Are Flooding Earth’s Rivers.” 5 7 2019.
“Looking Straight at the Sun.” Eos. 19 7 2019.
“Nineteen Eighty-Forams.” Eos. 22 7 2019.
“The Jail That Keeps Oxygen in the Air.” Eos. 25 7 2019.
“The Flickering Sky Islands.” Eos. 2 8 2019.
“The Permafrost Listeners.” Eos. 7 8 2019.
“Global Warming Is Conquering the Vikings.” Eos. 27 8 2019.
“As the Forest Moves Back in, Pollen Is on the Rise in Detroit.” Undark. 14 8 2019.
“Tinkering with Tectonics.” Eos. 6 9 2019.
“Will Cigarette Butts Be Our Environmental Legacy?” Eos. 11 9 2019.
“The Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Acidified the Ocean in a Flash.” The New York Times. 21 10 2019.
“How the Sahara Was Born.” Scientific American. 1 11 2019.
“Take the Climate Change Train.” Phoenix & Cricket. 6 12 2019.*
“How Life on Our Planet Made It Through Snowball Earth.” The New York Times. 2 12 2019.
“Storm waves can move boulders heavier than the Statue of Liberty.” New Scientist. 10 1 2018.
“Erasing a Billion Years of Geologic Time Across the Globe.” Eos. 5 2 2018.
“Mammoths may have suffered from bone disease.” EARTH Magazine. 8 2 2016.
“Coal formation nearly froze Earth.” EARTH Magazine. 15 2 2018.
“Huge underwater landslides and tsunamis may be caused by ooze.” New Scientist. 21 2 2018.
“Origins of plant photosynthesis illuminated.” EARTH Magazine. 10 4 2018.
“Whatever happened to thagomizers and other tail weapons?” EARTH Magazine. 10 4 2018.
“The Nile river is at least 30 million years old.” New Scientist. 11 4 2018.
“Worst mass extinctions may have been caused by rising mountains.” New Scientist. 23 4 2018.
“Will Cape Town Escape Its Water-Starved Fate?” Eos. 26 4 2018.*
“Mysterious Insect Fossil Gap Explained.” Scientific American. 1 5 2018.
“Travels in Geology: Rafting the Salmon River through the Idaho Batholith.” EARTH Magazine. 1 5 2018./“Getting there and getting around Idaho.”
“Skate eggs found on hydrothermal vents.” EARTH Magazine. 1 5 2018.
“TRAPPIST-1 system hosts seven “Earth-like” planets.” EARTH Magazine. 1 5 2018.
“Benchmarks: June 15, 1991: Mount Pinatubo erupts.” EARTH Magazine. 1 5 2018.
“Ancient Earth froze over in a geologic instant.” Science. 7 6 2018.
“Murder on the Permian Express.” Phoenix & Cricket. 11 6 2018.*
“Digging for Clues to the Planet’s Future in an Ancient Extinction.” Undark. 11 6 2018.*
“New Version of Popular Climate Model Released.” Eos. 22 6 2018.
“Mineral clue to finding perfectly preserved fossils?” EARTH Magazine. 3 7 2018.
“Seismic waves are blind to water.” EARTH Magazine. 3 7 2018.
“An asteroid redirected bird evolution.” EARTH Magazine. 3 8 2018.
“Bolts of insight on earthly gamma ray showers.” EARTH Magazine. 3 8 2018.
“Dinosaur-Killing Asteroid Impact Made Huge Dead Zones in Oceans.” Eos. 8 8 2018.
“‘Death Masks’ Reveal How Earliest Complex Organisms Became Fossils.” Scientific American. 1 9 2018.*
“Earth’s first footprints.” EARTH Magazine. 10 9 2018.
“First Antarctic tetrapods.” EARTH Magazine. 10 9 2018.
“Where will the San Andreas Fault rupture next?” EARTH Magazine. 10 9 2018.
“How Did Life Learn to Breathe?” Eos. 17 9 2018.
“The Search for ET May Be Missing Life on Low-Oxygen Worlds.” Scientific American. 1 10 2018.
“75-million-year old ocean microbes live forever on almost zero energy.” New Scientist. 11 10 2018.
“How Well Can the Webb Telescope Detect Signs of Exoplanet Life?” Eos. 24 9 2018.
“Weird rocks in Australia are a missing piece of the Grand Canyon.” New Scientist. 24 10 2018.
“Crashing waves may have spurred the evolution of backbones.” New Scientist. 25 10 2018.
“How Did Life Recover After Earth’s Worst-Ever Mass Extinction?” Eos. 1 11 2018.
“Forecasting California’s earthquake hazard.” EARTH Magazine. 8 11 2018.
“Ancient Romans Polluted Their Lakes Just Like We Do Today.” 28 11 2018. Eos.
“The Gumshoe and the Great Dying.” LSA Magazine, University of Michigan. 2018.
“Discovered: One of the last-surviving Asian dinosaurs.” EARTH Magazine. 9 2 2017.
“Kaikoura quake jumped from fault to fault in New Zealand.” EARTH Magazine. 16 2 2017.
“Beneath one volcano, enough water to fill Lake Superior.” EARTH Magazine. 16 2 2017.
“Life on land 300 million years earlier than thought.” EARTH Magazine. 16 2 2017.
“Zigzagging backbones helped turn dinosaurs into giants.” Science. 27 2 2017.”*
“Earth’s magnetic field illuminates ocean temperatures.” EARTH Magazine. 14 3 2017.
“Soil acidity changes quickly from place to place.” EARTH Magazine. 29 3 2017.
“To find a mate, go big or go small, just don’t go medium.” EARTH Magazine. 29 3 2017.
“‘Fingerprinting’ Volcanic Tremors May Help Forecast Eruptions.” Eos. 10 4 2017.
“Lucy liked hanging out in trees.” EARTH Magazine. 6 4 2017.
“Six new deep-sea species discovered.” EARTH Magazine. 6 4 2017.
“A Volcanic Trigger for Earth’s First Mass Extinction?” Eos. 30 5 2017.
“Whirling ‘gravel devils’ show wind can carry more than just sand.” EARTH Magazine. 15 6 2017.
“New global volcanic emissions map debuts.” EARTH Magazine. 19 6 2017.
“New cloud types recognized.” EARTH Magazine. 19 6 2017.
“Precambrian rumblings of the Cambrian Explosion.” EARTH Magazine. 19 6 2017.
“Contrary Temperature Trend Stalls Upgraded Climate Model’s Debut.” 5 7 2017.
“Dust influences pollution levels in eastern China.” EARTH Magazine. 10 8 2017.
“Clues Found That Earth May Have a Thermostat Set to ‘Habitable.'” Eos. 5 9 2017.
“Volcanism triggered end-Triassic extinction.” EARTH Magazine. 14 9 2017.
“Chemical clues illuminate fossil plant relationships.” EARTH Magazine. 13 10 2017.
“Dust orbiting Jupiter is going the wrong way.” EARTH Magazine. 18 10 2017.
“How to Trigger a Massive Earthquake.” Eos. 19 10 2017.
“Warty algae-like sheets survived Snowball Earth events.” EARTH Magazine. 2 11 2017.
“What drives hot spots of sea-level rise?” EARTH Magazine. 15 11 2017.
“When oxygen disappeared, early marine animals really started evolving.” Science. 17 11 2017.
“Bat Signals.” EARTH Magazine. 4 1 2016.
“Land plants came prepared for terrestrial life.” EARTH Magazine. 7 1 2016.
“Travels in Geology: Rocks and Climbing at Kentucky’s Red River Gorge.” EARTH Magazine. 22 1 2016./“Getting there and getting around Kentucky’s Red River Gorge.”/“Miguel, and trad versus sport climbing.”*
“Down to Earth With: Yosemite’s first park geologist Greg Stock.” EARTH Magazine. 2 2 2016.*
“The Drought Has Created New Gnarly Rapids in the Grand Canyon.” Outside. 10 2 2016.
“Scarps and craters reveal moon’s dynamic side.” EARTH Magazine. 12 2 2016.
“A Warm Day Can Trigger Rockfalls.” Eos. 2 4 2016.
“Magnesium part of Earth’s magnetic field engine.” EARTH Magazine. 19 4 2016.
“Gypsum Forms in an Unexpected Way.” 21 4 2016.
“Above oil seeps, photosynthetic life flourishes.” EARTH Magazine. 19 5 2016.
“New fossils illuminate ‘hobbit’ evolutionary history.” EARTH Magazine. 8 6 2016.
“A new gravity map of Earth.” EARTH Magazine. 15 6 2016.
“Fossil dinosaur illuminates evolution of tyrannosauroid body sizes.” EARTH Magazine. 15 6 2016.
“Two ichthyosaurs become one.” EARTH Magazine. 26 6 2016.
“Iron meteorites likely hidden below Antarctic ice.” EARTH Magazine. 16 6 2016.
“Weak magnetic field may have triggered Earth’s first mass extinction.” EARTH Magazine. 16 6 2016.
“Buried lunar craters filled by lava long ago.” EARTH Magazine. 16 6 2016.
“Travels in Geology: Sculptures of wind and ice: Sleeping Bear Dunes and Pictured Rocks National Lakeshores.” EARTH Magazine. 17 6 2016./“Getting there and getting around Michigan.”
“Lunar ice reveals moon’s poles shifted.” EARTH Magazine. 14 7 2016.
“Sea-level rise a risk for millions in the United States” EARTH Magazine. 14 7 2016.
“Ocean acidification worsens overnight along California coast.” EARTH Magazine. 14 8 2016.
“How Did Fragile Early Microbes Become Fossils?” Eos. 12 8 2016.
“First global topographic map of Mercury released.” EARTH Magazine. 16 8 2016.
“Firefighting gets a leg up from earthquake sensor networks.” EARTH Magazine. 16 8 2016.
“Sun shapes Titan’s atmospheric makeup.” EARTH Magazine. 25 8 2015.
“Benchmarks: August 25, 1916: The National Park Service is established.” EARTH Magazine. 26 8 2016.
“Bad weather hampered Mongol invasion of Europe.” EARTH Magazine. 13 9 2016.
“Tectonic rejuvenation in North America’s ancient mountains.” EARTH Magazine. 13 9 2016.
“Small asteroid spotted circling Earth.” EARTH Magazine. 13 9 2016.
“New dating of ‘hobbit’ sheds light on when it lived.” EARTH Magazine. 15 9 2016.
“Ancient dinosaur migrations analyzed.” EARTH Magazine. 16 9 2016.
“The current extinction of life will leave a scant fossil record.” EARTH Magazine. 17 8 2016.
“Down to Earth With: Fossil preparator Bob Masek.” EARTH Magazine. 20 9 2016.*
“Water use soared as workers flocked to North Dakota’s oilfields.” EARTH Magazine. 20 9 2016.
“Mammals hit harder than thought by end-Cretaceous extinction.” EARTH Magazine. 20 9 2016.
“Milky Way invisible for a third of humanity.” EARTH Magazine. 21 9 2016.
“Electric fields lift dust into the air at massive scales.” EARTH Magazine. 17 10 2016.
“New magma chamber discovered beneath New Zealand.” EARTH Magazine. 18 10 2016.
“How Earth’s oldest animals were fossilized.” Science. 19 10 2016.
“Air Pollutant Plays Lesser Role in Climate Change Than Expected.” Eos. 26 10 2016.
“How did animals get their skeletons?” Science. 15 11 2016.
“Why tectonic plates lurch forward when they break.” EARTH Magazine. 15 11 2016.
“Counting ‘tree’ rings in fish skulls provides climate clues.” EARTH Magazine. 29 5 2015.
“Closing a gap in the tetrapod fossil record.” EARTH Magazine. 6 8 2015.
“Ocean ‘sneezes’ spread algae-infecting virus.” EARTH Magazine. 21 8 2015.
“Snake forebear had two back legs but no front legs.” EARTH Magazine. 21 8 2016.
“Owl pellets bridge ancient and modern ecosystems.” EARTH Magazine. 10 6 2015.
“Is aviation ‘whitening’ the sky?” EARTH Magazine. 16 10 2015.
“Sculpting the Alps.” EARTH Magazine. 4 9 2015.
“Ancient marine reptiles born alive and ready to hunt.” EARTH Magazine. 21 9 2015.
“Ancient asteroids boiled Earth’s oceans.” EARTH Magazine. 21 9 2015.
“Geomedia: Film: Banff Mountain Film Festival is geologic showcase.” EARTH Magazine. 20 10 2015.
“Benchmarks: October 4, 1915: Dinosaur National Monument Founded.” EARTH Magazine. 21 9 2015./“Sauropod skull mystery.”
“Dinosaurs used the same nests repeatedly.” EARTH Magazine. 21 9 2015.
“Geomedia: Documentaries: Bearded ladies doing paleontology.” EARTH Magazine. 22 9 2015.
“Down to Earth With: Geophysicist Julian Lozos.” EARTH Magazine. 20 10 2015.
“Ancient lakes may have been refuges for early life.” EARTH Magazine. 23 10 2015.
“Benchmarks: November 1, 1755: Earthquake destroys Lisbon.” EARTH Magazine. 23 10 2015./“The quake’s impact on western thinking.”
“Down to Earth With: Paleobiologist Nigel Hughes.” EARTH Magazine. 12 11 2015.
“Narratives from Nepal: Relief and rebuilding after the Gorkha Earthquake.” EARTH Magazine. 18 11 2015./“Working near Gorkha’s epicenter.”*
“Rainbows reclassified.” EARTH Magazine. 21 6 2015.
“Benchmarks: January 10, 2013: Pinnacles National Park is founded.” EARTH Magazine. 29 12 2015./“Benitoite: A rare gemstone.”
“Permian-Triassic extinctions timed differently on land and at sea.” EARTH Magazine. 31 12 2015.
“Bringing dinosaur biology into the 21st century.” EARTH Magazine. 6 8 2012.
“No pre-Columbian deforestation of the western Amazon.” EARTH Magazine. 18 6 2012.
“Let’s Confront, Not Ignore, Climate Change.” The Press Enterprise. 14 6 2011.