Monika

@mohnika

Curator Micropalaentology & keeper of small old things micropaleontology / geochemistry / oceanography / paleoclimatology / environmental reconstruction / foraminifera / (she/her) 🇦🇹 🇬🇧 🇳🇱

378 Following786 Followers99 Posts

Bluesky

Is this your profile?Claim it and mohnika.dirty.social is yours.Claim profile

Monika@mohnika· 7h

Riedglacier (Riedgletscher) in Switzerland: On the left a photo from July 2013 ( (c) Günter Seggebäing (de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bordier...), on the right my picture August 2026, view from the Klein Bigerhorn.

Monika@mohnika· Jul 14

Lovely paragneiss / mica-shist fold in Ticino.

Photo of a thinly layered paragness sequence, layers leading from the front of the picture to the back, with a nice fold on the left side. This picture was taken high up in the mountains, with mostly rocky surroundings and a bit of greenery inbetween.

Monika@mohnika· Jul 1

🧪 calling deep water drill core paleo people! I'm searching for a "nice", ca. 3m long section of a drill core - spanning at least 100k years - visibly layered - somewhat ok studied (hyperthermals? Eocene?) - preferable #IODP / #ODP / #DSDP for a "science dry run" for visitors at a museum.

Monika@mohnika· Apr 10

The interior-design scenographers working of the new building asked for "photos of cool structures from your collections". Hard questions now need answers: Why are echinoids so cute? How many forams can I sneak in? Which is the cooler diatom? (Nobody warned me of those hard moments as a curator!)

SEM picture of an echinoid skin, with flower-like shapes where needles once were attached.

Monika@mohnika· Feb 5

I recently gave a pop-science talk about the KPg boundary. I think by looking at my (excellent! ^^) drawings one can easily decipher which organisms I deal with on a more common basis ...

A screenshot of a presentation slide with black and white, scribble-like drawings, picturing selected organisms, which were highly impacted at the KPg boundary. This includes plants, a mososaur, a plesiosaur, a triceratops, an ammonite, a belemnite, corals and bivalves (rudists and inoceramus), as well as microorganisms (a planktic foraminifera, a coccosphere and an ostracod)

Monika@mohnika· Jan 8

A brief stint of winter in Basel - entrance to the Natural History Museum #NMB

Picture of the entrance to the Natural History Museum Basel in winter. Snow is falling, covers the street and the two pine trees standing on both sides of the door. Behind the trees there are red flags hanging on the wall, advertising the special exhibition and framing the large, black and gold door, with "museum" carved in the stone above the frame.

Monika@mohnika· Dec 31

My favourite review (of a fire blanket). "Survived house fire - our house burnt down and is totally destroyed. I found the fire blanket we bought a year ago in the rubbel. Ordered a new one :D. + fire proof + found in OG packaging on rubble - could not have saved the house (fire too big haha)"

Monika@mohnika· Dec 9

Seeing that AI pictures are getting creepingly hard to tell from real ones, the idea of carrying a totem - which only you know in detail - becomes something to think about.

picture of the totem-gyroscope from the movie Inception

Monika@mohnika· Sep 16

When you had "a week" (and are going into the second "a week"), but you also have lovely coworkers 🥰

Monika@mohnika· Jun 17

The second Austrian Assessment Report on Climate Change is out... (aar2.ccca.ac.at) How do you know it is Austrian? ... ... ... 😶

Screenshot of the website to download the Secon Austrian Assessment Report on Climate Change saying: page not found

Monika@mohnika· Jan 23

What is main current reserach mainly about? Here is a little word cloud made out of recent manuscript titles (using: shiny.rcg.sfu.ca/u/rdmorin/sc... )

Wordcloud of relevant reserach topics, made out of titles of recent publications, those include, among others: Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, shelf, foraminiferal, coastal, atlantic, benthic, reconstruction, perturbation and coral

Monika@mohnika· Jan 7

Back to work, back at my microscope and back at picking and sorting foraminifera. I did learn that I can now also take those cool through-light pictures of microfossils, very excited about that (pictured: Planulina wuellerstorfi Schwager, 1866 - the first foram I had to pick for my Master's) 😊🧪

A picture of a coiled, nicely chambered foraminifera taken under a microscope with through-light, so the light is shining through the slightly transparent body, ehancing pores and chamber walls.

Monika@mohnika· Dec 17

Things are heating up in the Younger Dryas fandom OR when scientists fight. 🧪🦣

Screenshot of an scientific article with the title "Rebuttle of Sweatman, Powell, and West's "Rejection of Holliday et al.'s alleged refutation of the Younger Dryas Impact Hypothesis""

Monika@mohnika· Nov 20

A bit curious to discover that Microsoft Word sees a single long sentence as a problem and suggests revision.

a screenshot from a word document, pointing out a "problem", saying: Long Sentence (consider revising)

Monika@mohnika· Nov 18

How is a group of foraminifera called?

picture of larger benthic foraminifera, cut through diagonally and glued to a thin section, somewhat resembling a pod of whales breaching the ocean surface

Monika@mohnika· Nov 4

If you see this, post a photo taken in the mountains. From yesterday, Switzerland's autumn colours are in full swing.

Monika@mohnika· Oct 31

A great typo, and inspiring for a Halloween - signoff: With my warmest regards and best witches! (a letter of the correspondence archive of H. G. Kugler, stratigrapher and geologist)

a photo of a typewriter written letter, focussing onto the sign-off line saying: With my warmes regards and best whiches

Monika@mohnika· Sep 30

Nearly 30% of Austrians look at the desctructions left behind by the floods and decided: well that´s not really a problem! And that is not even mentioning the xenophobia, misanthropic, mysogonistic, unethic and plainly uneducated views they are supporting.

Monika@mohnika· Sep 10

The important notes on a manuscript 🧪

Photograph of an old, printed manuscript. The black and white figure depicts a man, noted as Gorge Higgins, on a road in Trinidad. A handwirtten comment is written beneath it sayzing: "G. Higgins wearing hat of H. G. Kugler!"

Monika@mohnika· Jun 24

Dear Science bluesky 🧪- Help me find out what tried to eat me for breakfast! Locality: Mediterranean - Ionian Sea, shallow bay Critter: about 1 mm long. Red is my blood, not its own coloring. My best guess is a parasitic arthropoda (isopoda larvae?).

Monika@mohnika· Mar 15

I see my fragile stickers are working well... Shipping scientific samples is always nerve wracking 🧪

Picture of a damaged package with a fragile sticker next to the damage. The sticker has a white dinosaur skeleton on red background and says: Fragile, please handle with care!

Monika@mohnika· Mar 7

It should be illegal to have to go to work if the fluffy housemate does this.

photo of a fluffy black dog, with a few white-greyish hairs, cuddled up on a lap on a couch, looking very adorable and comfy

Monika@mohnika· Dec 18

This is not the first time I heard from the "older" generation that the reason for PhDs taking longer than their contracted time is that we don't work at least 8-5 / 9-6, weekends, take too long breaks, and refuse to make the PhD the only thing our life revolves around.

Monika@mohnika· Dec 6

Dag Sinterklaas!

A picking tray filled with goodies from sinterklaas - mandarines, cookies, chocolate

Monika@mohnika· Dec 1

The exciting post-doc life of a micropaleontologist (yes my glue turned out pink, and no I have no glue why).

Plummer slides, after application of water-solvent glue, drying on a keyboard.

Monika@mohnika· Nov 15

Coating forams with chromium for the SEM does make them look super metal (sorry), but it is still a pita to use compared to gold.

a chromium coated trochospiral benthic foraminifera, shimmering silver

a chromium coated monoserial benthic foraminifera, shimmering silver

a chromium coated planispiral benthic foraminifera, shimmering silver

Monika@mohnika· Oct 26

Preparing a project proposal, and found one of the first foraminifera I got to treat to our LA-ICP-MS. Some forams were harmed in this production...

picture of a foraminifera with wholes caused by Laser Ablation in some chambers

Monika@mohnika· Oct 23

One test-foraminifera while I figure things out here (a polished section of a Cibicidoides alleni, ~56Ma old).