Bridget Platt
@bptt
Volcanologist interested in eruption dynamics, feedback between tectonics and magmatism, and how those influence hazards. Using python (badly) to understand magmatic systems. Scientist, mother, and trans woman. She/Her. All opinions my own. ⚒️ 🌋 🧪🏳️🌈 🏳️⚧️
I’m a day late, but honestly every day should be rock day! Here are a few cool rocks I encountered doing field work in/around Death Valley this spring. Rock descriptions in the alt text. ⚒️🧪🌋
A friend of mine noted that Riley Gaines still somehow managed to come in 5th place in the speaker lineup.
Just found out that a hate church/Christian college a few blocks from both my home and work is hosting a multi-day transphobia extravaganza in a couple weeks. SUPER excited to have to have a bus load of transphobic bigots running around my house…
Why is @nytimes.com running articles from an overt white supremacist? These are from the author:
I was trying to track down primary source documents on an event I read about in a book, and instead found this in a digital archive. I assume the Diana Sylvia Rivera was advocating to have cloned was the princess?
Spent much of my day mapping young faults in alluvial fan deposits in Death Valley using a recently released LiDAR dataset! The larger fault scarps in older deposits were pretty obvious, but trying to tease out scarps in the modern alluvium ‘bout had me cross eyed! ⚒️🧪
Meet the Colorado GOP. The sad thing is, Marx wasn’t even the worst of the Republican gubernatorial candidates. That would be Bottoms, whose campaign promised to execute a list of Jewish politicians if he was elected.
The Fresno County (California) Board of Supervisors is about to vote on an ordinance to designate June “Traditional Nuclear Family Month” in a direct attack on the co’s queer population and women. The ordinance is a Christian Fundamentalist screed aimed at same sex couples and divorce.
This touches on a significant challenge in pure map compilation - the biases and errors in the source maps become yours, whether youre aware of them or not.
Had an amazing time doing fieldwork in Death Valley with an incredible team of geologists!!! Until next time! 🌋⚒️🧪
Finally got to spend some time up close and personal with a (weird) volcano. It’s been *way* too long!!!
Found some Neoproterozoic diamictites (metamorphosed glacial deposits) from the Kingston Peak formation in Death Valley today!!!
It’s a spectacular time to be doing field work in the Death Valley region, despite the heat.
Colorado might have to take you up on that offer. This is what things should look like in May, not mid-March.
Made a rainbow while doing a “dry” run of the snow guns today! Can’t wait until we get cold enough to actually start blowing snow at Ruby Hill!
A fun comparison of the SAMBA (Cigna) 2025 and 2026 plan year anti-discrimination policies. Note that they both say that they comply with Federal antidiscrimination law, but the 2026 plan removes sexual orientation and gender identity from the protected classes. Federal law hasn't changed.