Matthew Kirk

Microbes are collectively one of the biggest forces shaping Earth, and yet undergraduate #geology students typically receive little training in microbiology. My new open access textbook seeks to help. “Microbiology for Earth Scientists” is freely available here newprairiepress.org/ebooks/53/

Nice story featuring work done by @microbialmatt.bsky.social and his group! The story talks about how nitrate pollution has resulted in many wells being above 10 ppm (drinking water limit) and within a few years many more wells will be above that limit. www.kcur.org/environment-...

Whiskey is for fighting; water is for fighting over kansasreflector.com/2025/12/15/k...

This quote from Octavia Butler, Parable of the Sower, seems particularly relevant today.

It's over. Despite the fact that the academic council recommended against it, despite the fact that the program brought in more tuition than it cost, and despite the fact that Nebraskans need & deserve this expertise, Earth & Atmospheric Sciences will be cut. www.dailynebraskan.com/news/adminis...

Octavia Butler, Parable of the Talents

What the well sees when a team of students collects samples :)

"The intensification of soil drying, combined with larger storms in mesic grasslands, is likely to have consequences for deep carbon storage and export and groundwater recharge in woody-encroached grasslands." link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Thawing permafrost is going to be a problem in more ways than one. www.sciencedaily.com/releases/202...

Hydrology Paper of the Day @lireactivewater.bsky.social on how hydrological processes influence spatial patterns of dissolved organic carbon: numerical experiments with the catchment-scale BioRT-HBV model indicating geological and biogeochemical cycles and controls; and the power-law CQ relationship

a thought i have reading @clintsmithiii.bsky.social’s wonderful piece is that one reason the administration wants to erase any mention of the worst of our past is because it is intent on recapitulating those atrocities www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archiv...

Great work by Zak Ratajczak and his team who use remote sensing and AI to quantify changes in plant communities in a grassland experiencing woody encroachment www.kcur.org/news/2025-08...

A Data‐Driven Simplified Nernst Equation for Estimating Reduction Potentials in #Groundwater from pH and Temperature - Bowman - Groundwater - Wiley Online Library ngwa.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Exploring Energy Conservation in Sulphate‐Dependent Anaerobic Methane‐Oxidising Consortia Through Metabolic Modelling - Bowman - 2025 - Environmental Microbiology - Wiley Online Library enviromicro-journals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Motherfucking wind farms…

Important findings related to groundwater depletion and also some great sci art! www.propublica.org/article/wate...

Our first black swallowtail butterfly of summer emerged this morning! Several more on the way soon.

An uplifting story about the Kansas River from the Up from Dust podcast: Kayakers vs. river pollution

Groundwater raining down on the High Plains

Groundwater sampling in south-central Kansas this week. Nearly half of the wells we have sampled in this part of the High Plains Aquifer have high nitrate levels.

Hydrology Paper of the Day @danielepenna.bsky.social on how preferential flow in a Mediterranean catchment is affected by antecedent soil moisture and soil properties: random forest models for classification of hydrological responses and preferential flow event identification from soil moisture.

Took a walk down memory lane and visited the woods I played as a kid in central Illinois. It’s a steep little valley cutting through Pennsylvanian cyclothems. Lots of stinky mud and springs. I suspect this place helped set me on my path to become a geoscientist.

End of semester gift from a couple of students :)

Hydrology Paper of the Day @agu.org on how topography is related to hydrology: a historical perspective; climate, precipitation, energy fluxes and exchange in the atmospheric boundary layer; biogeochemical cycles and vegetation; topography, gradients, and groundwater; and future research directions.

The bedrock here in the Flint Hills consists of alternating layers of limestone and mudrock, which leads to lots of little waterfalls and springs dotting the landscape.

This aside, however, I talked to a rotator this week and I want to convey that it's essential that you – the PI – keep doing your science; including writing and submitting proposals (whatever that looks like). This is a case where doing your job competently is actual resistance...

The International Association of Hydrogeologists is here!! Welcome to the blue sky 💙 bsky.app/profile/iahg...

Yes please - Less lawn, more wildlife! Here’s how to ditch turf for native plants: one.npr.org/i/fis-123986...

The local crappie population was completely unharmed but I did get a nice view this weekend of Permian limestone along Tuttle Creek Reservoir just outside of Manhattan, Kansas.

They're dismantling (what remains of) the social safety net and replacing it with a dragnet instead.

TopoDrive has become an indispensable online tool for me as I teach Hydrogeology. If you're unfamiliar, check it out here: tdpfonline.net. I caution you, however, that you'll want to play with it for more time than you have available.

Got a chance to look at some nice Cretaceous outcrops in central Kansas with wife and kiddos and we even saw our first local scorpion. Might need to be more careful when flipping over rocks :)

#WithoutNSF I wouldn’t be a scientist. - I got in an NSF REU Program and learned about grad school. - I did my PhD funded by 2 different NSF grants. - As a postdoc, I was an NSF RCN participant, building my network. - I got tenure with an NSF RAPID grant. - I got promoted with an NSF EPSCoR grant.

Spent the entire day in the field working with great folks on our woody encroachment research at Konza Prairie in NE Kansas. Great way to celebrate Earth Day!

New paper! After much work by me and my students we created a global database of hundreds of research watersheds, and perceptual models of their hydrologic processes. We use the data to test classic theories on how climate and landscape control dominant processes. www.nature.com/articles/s44...

Those soil health products may be a waste of money - more great stuff from @celialj.bsky.social

"A leaked memo from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Research Service division revealed Sunday that the agency has banned some key language from its vocabulary, including the words 'climate' and 'vulnerable,' as well as the phrase 'safe drinking water." newrepublic.com/post/193395/...

DOGE/Musk preferentially cancelled grants and contracts to recipients in counties that voted for Harris in 2024. Among cancellations with election data available, 92.9% and 86.1% cancelled grants and contracts went to Harris counties, representing 96.6% and 92.4% of total dollar amounts.

Big CONGRATS to @kacizarek.bsky.social!!! Her new paper is out in @agu.org's JGR-B! The paper has a little bit of everything -- N biogeochemistry, intermittent stream hydrology, concentration-connectivity relationships! Check it out here: agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

* Tornado "season" is now all year round * Tornado Alley is shifting to the northeast * While the total number of tornadoes hasn't changed, multi-tornado outbreaks are more common. See below for more info + citations.

I was just told that I have to remove “climate” from the title of an ongoing grant if I want to keep it. And publications from that grant cannot include “climate” and other forbidden words. I can’t believe I’m writing this from the United States of America. #AcademicSky

Really cool data in this new article - Microbial Fe(III) reduction across a pH gradient: The impacts on secondary mineralization and microbial community development - www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

A short(ish) thread on today's SCOTUS (5-4) decision saying EPA cannot require cities to limit discharge of sewage they dump into the ocean. This decision is, as noted in the dissent, rests on an unsubstantiated theory made up by the SCOTUS conservative majority... The blistering dissent says...