Tuesday, 25 November, 2025 / Edition 86

Well everyone, this is it! The final edition of AAPG’s Enspired newsletter. It's been a pretty fun ride. I appreciate the words of support I’ve gotten over the last few weeks and throughout this journey.

We figured it would be good to review some of our greatest hits and leave you all with a path forward to sign up for AAPG’s other newsletters, if you haven’t done so already. I highly recommend them!

You can still find me on LinkedIn, and I am staying busy with my other projects, including a podcast focused on information and inspiration for geoscientists going through career transitions with none other than Sarah Piertraszek-Mattner. I am also launching my asset development software, so feel free to reach out to me about that if you’re a development geologist sick of wasting your life away in PowerPoint 🤓

Let’s dig into Enspired’s greatest hits!

Sarah Compton

Editor, Enspired

DJ, Play that Tape

DaniiD/Shutterstock.com

Here’s a review of our top three stories from the year:

No 3: Animal Meets Machine in this Hydrogen-Powered Motorcycle

In May, we covered how Kawasaki is putting a 2025 twist on a classic mode of land transportation: four-legged critters.

In something that seems better suited to a session of one upmanship post-bro sesh at the gym, Kawasaki put a 150-cc hydrogen engine into the metal chassis of what looks like an artificial wolf, horse, or lion-meets-motorcycle robot.

Here are some of the tech highlights:

• The machine is controlled by the rider’s weight shifts, and AI keeps it balanced and adapts its movements in real time.

• There’s a display showing how much fuel is left, navigation tips, and weight distribution details.

• Each robot leg has rubber hooves that grip different surfaces securely.

The vehicle is called Corleo, a derivation of Cor Leonis, the brightest star in the constellation Leo, and more information about it can be found in this edition.

No 2: New Understandings Might Be Unlocked Thanks to New Maps

We geoscientists love a good map, and in early September, I highlighted how the USGS released an updated and powerful map using more than 100 pre-existing geologic maps from various sources.

This map was created quickly without sacrificing quality by utilizing an automated solution to effectively combine maps from state surveys and the USGS.

It’s the first nation-scale map that allows users to browse through different layers of geologic information for one location from a single map, and you can read that edition here.

No 1: The Deepest Core Ever Dug

And for the number one story … drum roll…We hit you with this beauty in mid to late August and described how a team with the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) got more mantle than it bargained for and pulled up more than a kilometer of core.

That team had expected about 200 meters of core based on what had been previously extracted and instead got five times that!

The innovative recovery was made possible using common sense planning and execution:

• Research identified a location with the best chance of success.

• The best tool for the job was selected.

• Perhaps most important: some flexibility was built into the plan so that the team wasn’t forced to stop when they hit the “anticipated” core amount of 200 meters. They were able to continue drilling when it proved easier and faster than originally thought, and the results were truly Earth-shattering.

I deeply appreciate you all joining us on this journey. Follow other newsletters on their journeys here.

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Looking for More Ways to Incorporate Geology into Everyday Life?

Every Thursday, AAPG’s GeoLifestyle delivers inspiration for ways to further invigorate your passion for geoscience outside of the office. With travel tips, recommended reads, and more, you can easily ground your next vacation, activity with your kids or grandkids, book club, or day off in geoscience fun.

A Look at Last Week’s GeoLifestyle

Jungo Flat/ Courtesy of Ryan Parkyn

Here is a snippet of a recent story from AAPG’s GeoLifestyle newsletter. Sign up here to start receiving geoscience-filled inspiration and travel tips directly to your inbox.

Jungo Flat is located in northwestern Nevada within the Great Basin region, west of Winnemucca. It is accessible via the 100-mile-long Jungo Road, which also connects Burning Man travelers to the Black Rock Desert.

• The ghost town of Jungo originated as a Western Pacific Railroad station in 1910. The post office operated 1911–1952. The Haystack Mine, a nearby gold mine, has been actively mining since 1915.

Area geology: Jungo Flat is part of the Basin and Range Province, characterized by alternating mountain ranges and flat valleys formed by fault-block tectonics.

• Roughly 50 square miles in area, the Flat is a playa—A dry lakebed, created as ancient Pleistocene lakes evaporated, leaving behind fine silt, clay, and evaporite minerals such as gypsum and halite.

• The surrounding hills and ranges include the Jackson Mountains and the Antelope Range.

  • The Jackson Mountains are composed mainly of volcanic arc rocks, whereas the Antelope Range contain back-arc basin marine rocks.

  • A regional-scale thrust fault places older volcanic arc rocks on top of the relatively younger back-arc marine rocks.

• The area shows signs of ephemeral stream channels and alluvial fan deposits, typical of desert basins.

• Aeolian (wind-blown) processes shape surface features, contributing to nearby Winnemucca Sand Dunes, composed primarily of reworked volcanic and sedimentary material.

Ryan’s trip tips: “I camped for about four weeks at Jungo Flat while I was investigating the geology of the adjacent mountain ranges. Camping is legal on most of the playa, as it is public land. It is reachable by high-clearance, two-wheel drive vehicles via a dirt road. I have some very nice photos from here, and the area is known for landscape photography. It is especially scenic in summer light.”

Activities:

• Land sailing is common on the Flat due to consistent high winds. Wind-powered vehicles known as “land yachts” reach speeds of 20–50+ miles per hour.

• Occasional small aircraft landings have been reported on the Flat.

Look out for space rocks: Because of their light-colored surfaces and minimal vegetation, the playas in this region are known for meteorite finds.

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