Zoltán Sylvester
Research professor at UT Austin | geology | sedimentology | rivers | python | mountains | running | opinions are my own | he/him
zsylvester.github.io
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterExcited that this paper, led by former PhD student Natalia Varela (based on her dissertation), is now out! We use the occurrence & characteristics of thin, silty turbidites from the Ross Sea to interpret Antarctic Bottom Water outflow since ~3.3 Ma. agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
- Reposted by Zoltán Sylvester
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterMy advice to undergraduates: Do *not* sign on to a PhD just because it's a 'next step' and you don't know what else to do. A master's program is a much better option in that scenario. You can find out if you genuinely enjoy the endeavor and, if not, it's only 2 years and you get a great degree! 1/2
- Reposted by Zoltán Sylvester“We found that using AI assistance led to a statistically significant decrease in mastery.” Props to Anthropic for studying the effects of their creation and reporting results that are not probably what they wished for www.anthropic.com/research/AI-...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterJust an incredible and unusual landslide at Niscemi, Sicily, Italy, as captured by @planet.com SuperDove satellites 🧪⚒️🛰️
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterWant to know how we used AI to classify and identify dinosaur footprints? Check out this breezy summary of our new study by coauthor Paige dePolo in @uk.theconversation.com Including a tutorial for our free DinoTracker app, which YOU can use to study tracks. theconversation.com/identifying-...
- I added a page to my website that hints at the idea that I am interested in experimenting with artsy stuff when exploring landscapes with rocks and rivers zsylvester.github.io/art/
- There is also a page with links to recorded talks: zsylvester.github.io/presentations/
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterThe US Winter Storm Seen from Space – January 25, 2026 Watch the 2026 U.S. Winter Storm unfold from space in this stunning satellite timelapse created with just a few clicks using the QGIS Timelapse Plugin.
- Reposted by Zoltán Sylvester"You look around and think, 'Yep, this is it. Paramilitary deportations, apocalyptic foreign policy, and private corporations looting the federal government. This has to be the Fourth Reich.' Not so fast. It’s only the Fourth Reich if it comes from the Reich region of Germany."
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterA man was murdered today for filming the American Gestapo. There's no other way to put that. I watched the footage, it is horrifying. The only reason ICE initiated violence was because he was standing in place filming their lawless actions.
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterExploring Death Valley w/ @zzsylvester.bsky.social for fall field trip this week
- Spending half an hour to figure out how to log in to a for-profit journal website to let them know that I don't have time to review a paper: not my favorite activity. You are making more than enough money to build (or pay for) a decent editorial management system. #elsevier
- This PBS Terra / Weathered episode is not easy to watch but it gives a great overview of the science and the aftermath of the 2025 fires in LA, one year later youtu.be/tYNwfj74WsI?...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterNew #OA @geosociety.bsky.social Geosphere pub 'landslide influenced delta stratigraphy' w/ @zzsylvester.bsky.social, Dunlap & Covault: pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geospher.... Paper's Figure 11 compares deltas w/ landslides v 'typical' delta ('typical' see: zsylvester.github.io/papers/fuji_...).
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterI've been sitting on this for over a month...but given how cross I am with @royalsociety.org at their ongoing inaction over #Elon #Musk I thought I'd share this. They invited me to serve on their Public Engagement Committee; I could have been more eloquent, but I had to give a firm "no"...
- One task for which I would highly recommend using AI is improving poorly designed websites. I just asked Gemini to tweak the design of a conference page that makes me want to stay away from the conference, and the result is an order of magnitude better than the input
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterHere's a summary of all the data that supports adding more red meat to your diet
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterFuck this man's grotesque narcissism.
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterJust like climate change , there are two sides to this but one side is lying and we can just report the truth.
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterHow is salt tectonics affected by salt rheology, rift tectonics, and sedimentation rates? ⚒️🧂 In this article of Zhichen Wang, we use cross-scale geodynamic models of lithosphere deformation, evaporite flow and surface processes: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/...
- Came across this old video of a sphere rolling down a 3D-printed meandering submarine channel. Even if you start out with a channel that has a constant slope, the meandering process results in a variable along-channel slope which is reflected in how the sphere speeds up and slows down ⚒️🧪
- One of the best things that happened to me in 2025 was that we got a permit to visit The Wave in Arizona. Here are some photos from last Friday; needless to say, photos do not do justice to this place
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterBack to my year in review... In June it was back to #Iceland, first to the Snæfellsnes Peninsula with a dear friend. Light and wave conditions were dull, so photography wasn't great, but at the end I drove up to the Highlands & finally visited Hveravellir. Got some nice drone shots there.
- TFW you have been trying to get a permit for The Wave for years, without success, and then you get not one but two permits for the same day
- Will be giving one of the last talks today at #AGU25, focusing on how well simple curvature-based models work on meandering rivers with a range of sediment loads. It turns out these models are not so robust if the sediment load is high and the river is migrating with crazy-high rates
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterPhotos from the Patapsco River in Maryland yesterday. Lucky to have the snow stick to the trees despite the high winds! #riversfromabove
- Downstream fining on a point bar, Trinity River, Texas. Scale bar units: centimeters in first photo, millimeters in the rest 🧪⚒️
- A couple of days ago we went to check out one of the most beautiful bends of the Trinity River in east Texas, a bend that is likely to be cut off in the near future 🧪⚒️
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterPossible desiccation cracks (mudcracks) in rock found by the Mars Curiosity Rover this week. flic.kr/p/2rLi9Lh flic.kr/p/2rLoXm3 flic.kr/p/2rL7ntV
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterWhile cleaning up I came across a large set of TIFF files. Zooming turned out to be worthwhile. Had to look up where it is. Here we go: a small part of the amazing Haast River, West Coast Region, New Zealand.
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterDidn’t know about this event but was wandering in the NOMA today to clear my mind and there it was: so for AGUans… Wednesday evening at New Orleans Museum of Art! Which is close to my house 😀
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterFluorescent barite from the “Skunk Pocket” at Linwood Mine, Iowa. Not much seems to be known about this find except that it was a small one from around 2019. Shown under longwave UV (365nm). Visible light comparison in comments. Person collection, photo my own. #geology #uvphotography #barite
- A good introduction to power law distributions and their links to fractals, self-organized criticality, forest fires, networks, and earthquakes - although it would have been nice if they included more domain-expert perspectives and hinted at the limitations of these models youtu.be/HBluLfX2F_k?...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterThe Schelde (Scheldt river) east of Gent (Ghent), Belgium, once meandered widely and is now a relatively narrow river, a change that likely occurred in the Late Weichselian.
- Listening to this was a lot of fun. Disclaimer: I haven’t read Yuval Noah Harari’s book. And, after listening to this, I never will
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterWhat the ACTUAL FUCK, Kīlauea?! Go check it out yourself in the livestream right now. 👇 ⚒️🧪 #volcano www.youtube.com/live/tk0tfYD...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterTruly the stupidest cult. Obsessed with a drug that doesn't work against an infectious disease that they don't even think is real.
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterDelighted that one of my Antarctic winter photos has won the 2025 Royal Society Photography Competition, Earth Science & Climatology category. Captured during polar-night surveys of ocean conditions near Antarctic Peninsula glaciers. royalsociety.org/journals/pub...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterOne of the first uses we put our myst/any-widget interface to was to expose vizarr in Curvenote articles - vizarr being a popular JS viewer for the OME Zarr format. (The vizarr being the work of @manzt.sh and others at hms-dbmi) Some examples included 👇 opensci.dev/articles/019...
- Posting this because it might prevent some additional swearing from happening: if you are trying to log in to the AGU website, do not use Safari
- Looks like AGU has decided that Macs (and people who use Macs) can just be ignored
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterWherever you can, whenever you can: exploit this crack, wedge it apart, and lever it open, until the whole insane edifice disintegrates and the fleeing rats are crushed into ignominy. newrepublic.com/article/2037...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterA Sharon Begley byline, almost 5 years after her death. Upon hearing the news James Watson had died, a STAT reporter said in our Slack, "I wish I could read what Sharon would have written." Incredible news: Sharon in fact did pre-write a Watson obit. And it is masterful and excoriating. 🧪🧬🧫
- Moqui marbles - concretions from the Navajo Sandstone in Utah (images created from a photo taken in the field) 🧪⚒️
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterDang, hard disagree. The best papers to write and read are works of art, not merely a list of data and statements. Don’t let LLMs take this away too, for gods sake.
- Trying to decide which Matplotlib colormap is a good colormap for differentiating grains in an image
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterTectonic plate puzzle anyone? 🌎 Made by me, one at a time. I’m planning to have a really limited number available before the holidays - if you want to find out when I do, sign up to my newsletter! I will share them through it first. Sign up > www.luciaperezdiaz.com#newsletter (No spam, I promise)
- As I said before, I am not a big fan (to say the least) of using AI for writing or generating images / movies, but it has completely changed the game when it comes to coding. Again, this does not mean that you don’t need to know anything about coding or that the work is less complicated/intense.
- Reposted by Zoltán Sylvesterlol she got his ass and he knows it
- I got this cutting board and these coasters from Kurtis Burmeister’s Etsy shop and they are among my favorite objects in the house www.etsy.com/shop/Burmeis...
- I just blocked all emails from MDPI journals in my email app. They are relentless. They are the worst.
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterTLDR; The PSF has made the decision to put our community and our shared diversity, equity, and inclusion values ahead of seeking $1.5M in new revenue. Please read and share. pyfound.blogspot.com/2025/10/NSF-... 🧵
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterThe perplexing (to me, anyway) phenomenon of laminated loess deposits (Bignell Hill, Nebraska)
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterA new study argues that in the past, Cascadia quakes have triggered the San Andreas to go off, and that it could happen again. But other experts, while recognizing that may technically be possible, want more evidence. Read more at NatGeo: www.nationalgeographic.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterI was recently interviewed by @drlauraguertin.bsky.social as part of her 'Tales from the Deep' series focused on the people involved in scientific ocean drilling ⚒️🧪⛴️ –– lots of great stories from many others there to check out archive.storycorps.org/interviews/i...
- Today was a good day. #nokings protest, Austin, Texas
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterIt can not be exaggerated just how wild the climate of the Pleistocene was in which we evolved. All of recorded history is in pixel at the very top of the very last zigzag, all the way to the right of this graph. From a new paper on sea level over past 4.5 million yrs www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterNext week at the #GSA2025, I'll be presenting my newly developed Python tool, 𝒑𝒚𝑪𝒐𝒓𝒆𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓. We apply it to quantitatively re-examine the correlatability of Cascadia deep-water turbidites, previously interpreted as synchronous deposits of paleo-earthquakes. Abstract: lnkd.in/gJ_KHH2j
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterHeaded out into the field. Josh printed out 3D maps of the region for reference. ⚒️
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterDid you know that sand records its transport history as it moves across Earth's surface? We developed a new tool to investigate billion-year-old rocks by looking at microscopic features on zircon sand grains. Check out our new paper in @geosociety.bsky.social to see how! doi.org/10.1130/G537...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterIt was a pleasure to contribute to this article, which talks about how AI contributes to seismology - indeed, we have seen tremendous progress in the use of machine learning to detect small events. 1/
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterAn excellent response by MIT’s President Sally Kornbluf rejecting the Trump compact. Other universities should do the same.
- It's not a big deal but I find it annoying when I am told to use only one slide (or three, whatever) when giving a short talk. I am old enough to figure out how to use visuals in a limited amount of time; let me decide if I want to use fifty slides or none
- Reposted by Zoltán Sylvesterah the leaves are turning and the men are giving each other prizes again the first whispers of winter
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterIt appears that my employer, Dartmouth, one of the Trump 9, has said no to the compact. All the better given that our president is cited within it. But she’s saying no. Count the small victories when they come.
- Reposted by Zoltán Sylvester🚨FOUR tenure track positions in my dept @ucalgary.bsky.social @ucalgaryscience.bsky.social in applied & computational geophysics, subsurface geochemistry, sedimentary geology, and sustainable soil science. careers.ucalgary.ca/search/jobs?... (please reskeet widely!) #academicsky 🧪⚒️🇨🇦
- Reposted by Zoltán Sylvester“It trades autonomy for subservience, academic freedom for censorship, gender science and history for ideology, and the best interests of UT students and faculty for the favor of an administration intent on destroying our university.” www.texastribune.org/2025/10/02/u...
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterThis is so, so horrible. Who are these unaccountable government agents? What gives them the right to abuse people this way? Where is due process? I weep for these poor children, and I weep for the nation that condones this abominable treatment. This behavior is sadistic.
- Reposted by Zoltán Sylvesterits this part "If universities sign and then violate the terms of the compact, they could be forced to return any money given to them by the federal government that year as well as any private contributions." 👀 Stay in line OR ELSE
- Reposted by Zoltán SylvesterI also like to use some of their examples from previous underwater experiments (Reffet et al., 2010; doi.org/10.1130/G308...) to show how acute and obtuse diverging winds result in different dune types (inspired by @agunn.bsky.social 's Sharp Lecture last year):
- Reposted by Zoltán Sylvester@txgeosciences.bsky.social QCL Clastics Lab at Tusher Canyon, north of Green River, UT. Origin & architecture of channels incising parasequences.
