Dr. Evan J. Gowan

Researcher at the KIKAI Institute for Coral Reef Science, Japan. I study past climate, ice sheets and sea level change. #SeaLevel #Paleoclimate #IceSheets

Website: https://raisedbeaches.net/
OrcID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0119-9440
Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lMhyQ1EAAAAJ&hl=en
Github: https://github.com/evangowan

Public Key

npub1lrp4jvrgajtsragwszvf3n60n9e5hyf996jsg8ntvfzpul9f6l6s0e958g

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drevangowan_at_fediscience.org@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqs03s6exp5we9cp758gpxycea8eju6tjyjjafgyre4ky3q70j5a0agpz3mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujuerpd46hxtnfduqs6amnwvaz7tmwdaejumr0dsmy82uf

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Last Notes

2026-10-31 08:35:24 UTC

The first paper in by 2027 folder is by Vacchi et al, who have surveyed a lagoon in Sardinia (Italy) for foraminifera to investigate how they can be used to precisely determine sea level position in the Mediterranean. Looks promising!
#SeaLevel #ClimateChange #Mediterranean
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2026.110515

2026-10-28 08:37:31 UTC

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Research and education are social activities. If people are just working from home or taking online classes, they miss out on the interactivity of discussion and inquiry. This year I moved from a siloed department to a place where social gathering is strongly encouraged, and it has been so much more rewarding. I guess if you consider research to be "just a job", the things described in that article are ok, but it is a very sad thing for our society if a university just becomes a vessel for gaining a qualification or getting a paycheck.

2026-10-28 04:42:21 UTC

Rosenberg et al present compelling evidence, based on inherited cosmogenic ¹⁴C in bedrock, that the northwest Greenland Ice Sheet was likely similar to the present configuration during much of MIS 3. The LGM advance happened late, possibly at as late as 20,000 years ago.
#IceSheets #Greenland #Geology #ClimateChange
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2026.110342

2026-10-27 00:43:52 UTC

Young et al have an interesting paper out, demonstrating that the Laurentide Ice Sheet started to advance between 2000 and 1000 years ago, possibly heralding the inception of the next glacial cycle. However, due to rising CO₂, the advance stopped in the 1960s, halting the next glacial cycle.
#ClimateChange #IceSheets #Geology
https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aed3379

2026-10-21 08:42:10 UTC

Have you ever seen a rock that is composed almost entirely of foraminifera? Now you have! From a Late Pleistocene (probably MIS 3/4) outcrop in western Kikaijima, Japan.
#geology #fossils #foraminifera
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/117/478/003/163/714/024/original/6444b2ec75ec0fd1.jpeg

2026-10-17 15:11:31 UTC

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I try to go to Akihabara every time I go to Tokyo, but somehow I missed this.

2026-10-17 09:48:44 UTC

I was at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature in Kyoto this week. They have a gavel on display that was used to announce the agreement of the Kyoto Protocol. Alas, the protocol did not have enough of an impact to stop the rise of carbon emissions. #Kyoto #ClimateChange
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/117/455/615/953/131/182/original/091560f9218679ac.jpg

2026-10-15 10:42:55 UTC

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Palaeoclimate data is messy and for long time series, it is rarely a single data source. 2.73 Ma is pretty much exactly at the Pliocene/Quaternary boundary, so I assume they spliced two records there.

2026-10-15 08:57:26 UTC

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A more likely explanation is that they didn't splice the datasets correctly. It has been a long time since I looked at the Miller dataset, but I recall they use a different d18O to sea level transfer function for different time periods for reasons that do not make use of physical reasoning.

2026-10-10 02:45:03 UTC

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I don't blame you, the traffic in Naha is awful.

2026-10-07 13:13:13 UTC

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Haha, well, I don't think it won based on amino acid racemization, but more the fact that the "handedness" of the molecules plays a large role in chemical reactions in organisms. That is why amino acid dating works, because organisms will have a biased concentration in a one form of the molecule (since they are needed for life), but postmortem chemical reactions brings them into a balance over time.

2026-10-07 12:05:09 UTC

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Our paper, led by Karla Rubio-Sandoval, came out 2 years ago. In the village of Camarones, Argentina, we used the amino acid racemization to deduce sea level highstands for the Holocene, MIS 5e, and MIS 9/11! https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quascirev.2024.108999

2026-10-07 11:58:28 UTC

Today's Nobel Prize in Chemistry celebrates the explanation for spontaneous homochirality (where a molecule will convert to its mirror image). This is the process that is behind amino acid racemization dating, which we have used for dating shells in beach deposits.
#science #chemistry #NobelPrize
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/chemistry/2026/summary/

2026-10-07 01:19:03 UTC

Fujita et al estimate past "global" sea level (39-17 ka) from benthic large foraminifera assemblages from the Great Barrier Reef. Their estimates of past sea level are much lower than previous estimates, with mid-MIS 3 sea level at 39 ka at -101 m, and an LGM lowstand of -137 m.
Obviously figuring out past sea level is a big part of my research, through my ice sheet reconstructions. I think it is implausible to have global sea level at -101 m at 39 ka, because the ice sheets were far short of of their LGM limits at that point.
The Eurasian Ice Sheet just had mountain-centered ice caps, as did the Cordillera Ice Sheet. The Laurentide Ice Sheet was restricted to the extent of the Canadian Shield in most places. The Antarctic Ice Sheets were not a major component of the global sea level fall, even at the LGM.
My reconstruction currently puts 31 m of sea level equivalent ice volume in the Laurentide at 40 ka, and I can't envision that number going up by more than 10 m from this configuration even with the assumption of a more hard bedded ice sheet. Where would you get 60 more meters of ice volume?
Don't get me wrong, I like what they tried to do here with their sea level reconstruction. But it is clear that some major uncertainty factor is not being accounted for here.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsl.2026.120379

2026-10-02 10:07:24 UTC

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I don't know about "factory". The rhodoliths growing around Kikaijima often have thousands of years of accumulation on them.

2026-09-27 13:21:37 UTC

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I have not seen any widespread issues with the citation counts on Google Scholar, but that might just be a discipline specific thing.

2026-09-24 04:37:16 UTC

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I remember 20 years ago having a class with Weaver. He really liked to toot his own horn!

2026-09-24 04:30:40 UTC

I finally made it back to Uki City in Kumamoto, nearly 2 months after the severe earthquake. Since it has also been extremely dry, there are still visible cracks in the ground at the property I am maintaining. #earthquake
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/117/324/132/080/700/472/original/b06142ae6fc7070b.jpg

2026-09-23 09:22:16 UTC

I went on a geotour of Kikaijima yesterday and took my guest to the Araki Fault. Looks like it is moving.
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/117/319/614/114/504/979/original/47b076aedea53eec.jpg

2026-09-16 05:15:07 UTC

The touchscreen on my Samsung phone was not randomly not responding over the past few days. Locking the screen would fix the problem a bit, but the problem would soon return. I figured out what caused it. I cleared the cache on Google Chrome (which was at >2 GB), and this no longer happened. I assume that the memory on the phone was too full and that slowed the responsiveness of the touchscreen. At no point did my Internet searches come up with this solution. The usefulness of the Internet is diminishing.

2026-08-30 01:33:54 UTC

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I say to everyone that you don't want to rely on thes LLM AI systems, because they might not exist in a year and then you will be in trouble.

2026-08-20 13:38:35 UTC

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Well, we were without power for two days last time, it is not a great situation on our small island. The forecast path of the next typhoon looks pretty similar so far. Maybe I can get a publication out of the moving boulders, though.

2026-08-20 13:34:25 UTC

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I am actually in a tight situation because I want to measure their position before the typhoon hits next week. The last typhoon definitely moved some of the boulders that were as much as 1 m wide! There was one boulder that I saw last week that was probably 5 m wide and still had corals attached to it, so some recent (i.e. probably within the past 10 years) storm pushed it out of the ocean and moved it about 50 m from the shoreline.

2026-08-20 13:00:23 UTC

Going fossil hunting tomorrow.
Hopefully some boulder hunting as well.
Life as a geologist.

2026-08-13 05:29:19 UTC

I wrote a blog post about my experience with Typhoon Dolphin, which affected Kikaijima last week. I found some boulders transported by the storm surge, which showed the power of this storm.
#Typhoon #TropicalStorm #Japan
https://raisedbeaches.net/2026/08/13/typhoon-dolphin/

2026-08-07 09:45:04 UTC

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On Kikaijima, we might be without power for several days. :(

2026-08-07 03:11:02 UTC

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It is awful. :(

2026-08-07 03:10:46 UTC

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We lost power in Kikaijima at 5 AM. They say it might take a few days to restore it!

2026-08-06 23:54:58 UTC

Typhoon Dolphin is making its closest approach to Kikaijima right now. We have been without power since about 5 AM. #typhoon #Japan
https://fediscience.org/system/media_attachments/files/117/051/257/565/519/227/original/a5fb09f0295d7aeb.png

2026-08-06 13:43:52 UTC

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The story based on her life was required reading when I was in elementary school. :(

2026-08-03 04:14:52 UTC

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This is why I don't understand the appeal of generative AI. The best part of writing is the writing!

2026-03-10 12:03:57 UTC

Next month, I will be starting a new position as a researcher at the KIKAI Institute for Coral Reef Sciences! Kikaijima is a small island in southern Japan, famous for its fossil coral reefs. I have written a blog post about this and some reflections on my time in Kumamoto during the past 5 years.
https://raisedbeaches.net/2026/03/10/the-next-chapter-kikaijima/