Howdy. I'm a geologist and volcanologist. Sometimes I draw. If you have questions about volcanoes, rocks, or need career advice, send me an ask! I can also try to ID rocks & minerals for you. Spam like and reblog to your heart's content & you're more than welcome to go crazy in the tags.
Interests: volcanoes, geohazards, igneous rocks, copper minerals, Route 66, radioactivity, Fallout, blink-182, pop/skate punk, 20th century art design and history, local town history, classic cars, printmaking techniques, MTV cartoons, weasels
Art tags: Rock Art / Rock Doodles
Notable tags: Nonco / Urush / Rock talks / Geology tag
TBMona GIF by silverope
Last updated: February 13, 2026
FAQ:
Q: Do you take commissions/trades/requests?
A: Commissions - Sometimes I do. If you'd like to be added to a waitlist to get notified when I open slots, please reach out. My slots often fill up pretty quickly though.
Trades - Yes! I typically make posts calling for trades when I can handle it, but feel free to reach out.
Requests - Eh, I only follow through on requests of geologic formations like volcanoes. I can't even do requests of my own OCs...
Q: What are your art tools?
A: I mainly use digital tools. I'll update this once I start printmaking again. My backgrounds are done by following the same techniques as irl gouache painting because I think it's neat.
Programs: Clip Studio Paint & Procreate
Tablet: iPad Pro & Apple Pencil or Wacom Bamboo Capture tablet & pen
Brushes: I use a bunch of different ones, please send me an ask and link the image you had in mind so I can reverse engineer my process and brushes for you.
Q: What is your favorite rock?
A: I'm a big fan of igneous rocks but if I had to really choose, diorite! I love how the look like cookies 'n cream. I also like peridotites, especially kimberlites.
Q: What is your favorite mineral?
A: Fluorite! I love their cube shapes. I also love copper-bearing minerals like dioptase, malachite, azurite, chrysocholla, etc. and radioactive minerals like torbernite. I mainly collect igneous rocks & minerals, copper-bearing minerals, and Texas rocks & minerals.
Q: And your favorite volcano?
A: Definitely Sunset Crater! I find cinder cones to be endearing amongst other types of volcanoes because of how odd they are, and as I have a huge interest in Route 66, I really love volcanoes along/near Route 66.
Q: How did you choose to become a volcanologist?
A: Insanity, networking, and flexibilty.
Some people have a cheesy "I've always known what I wanted to be as a kid/in college," but the reality is...most people don't know what they want to do!! And it's totally ok. Hell, I didn't know what I wanted to do after graduating and thought I was too dumb to become a volcanologist. It took me almost 2 years after graduating to really cement it in that I want to play with lava for a living pursue volcanology thanks to a handful of kind and very passionate volcanologists that wanted to share their world with me — just meet volcanologists and ask about their research and what they do, why they chose volcanology, what they did to get to that point, etc, and also ask them to introduce you to others in the field if they don't already offer it themselves. It is detrimental that you try to meet other people in this field and network with them. They might tell you things about the field, who to look out for, who's good to work with, any cool programs to apply for, if any place has open postions, and so forth.
To be a volcanologist, you must have the drive to become one and have at least some entry level expertise on volcanoes. If you can't get a geologist/volcanologist/scientist position at a place with a volcano, try asking to meet with someone or volunteering, working for their visitor center, interpretation, or maintenance, etc at a place with volcanoes — you will get to meet people who do work in those positions and also experience The Volcano daily as you work, which is great for learning + a lot of the job requires comfort with being outdoors. Many of these places offer internships or seasonal positions, so don't feel like you are stuck there forever or don't have credentials. People call themselves artists because they have the skill to draw, not because they are hired to draw.
Good luck out there.
Q: Do you work for Cartoon Network?
A: Yea, as their on-site geologist. I told them their building is sinking. (JK, I do not and have never worked in the animation industry. I honestly get very surprised when people assume I do. )
I've done art for research and education in geoscience and conservation for some organizations and agencies, as well as independent work. I can't tell you which they are, you'll just need to find out yourself ;-]
Although I lack the funds right now, I feel tempted to commission you for an icon of my favorite anticline that i studied for my doctorate. Issue is it would doxx me x)
lol I would be so honored to if you ever decide that TBH!
If you are worried about that, I would just leave the name and all information off of it if I shared it publicly...but if you are worried about doxxing yourself to ME....then alas...we are but 2 ships in the night...2 tumbling rocks on opposite ends of a slope...
The headquarters is going to Utah. Every regional office is being shuttered. The research program is being destroyed.
“More than fifty research and development facilities across thirty-one states. Gone. Consolidated into a single location in Fort Collins, Colorado. And ‘consolidated’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence, because what it actually means is that decades of place-based, long-term ecological research—the kind that literally cannot exist anywhere else because it depends on specific forests, specific watersheds, specific ecosystems studied over generations—will be snuffed out.
You cannot move a thirty-year watershed study. You cannot relocate a decades-long old-growth monitoring program. You cannot box up a forest and ship it to Colorado. When these facilities close, the experiments die. The datasets end. The partnerships with universities that took generations to build collapse. And the institutional knowledge of the scientists who ran those programs walks out the door, because the administration damn well knows most of them won’t follow a forced relocation to a single consolidated office that has nothing to do with the ecosystems they’ve spent their careers studying.”
Call your senators. Both of them. Tell them the Forest Service reorganization is proceeding without the congressional approval required by Section 716 of the Agriculture Appropriations Act and Section 421 of the Interior Appropriations Act. Use those numbers. Say them out loud. Staffers write down what they don’t recognize, and these are the provisions their bosses voted for.
If your senator is a Republican, the question is simple: you voted for a law that requires USDA to get committee approval before reorganizing or relocating any office. USDA didn’t get that approval. Their own lawyers declared your law unconstitutional. What are you going to do about it?
If your senator is a Democrat, the question is just as simple: the legal basis for stopping this already exists. Where are the subpoenas? Where are the hearings? Why is USDA’s general counsel allowed to declare a duly enacted law unconstitutional by internal memo and face no consequences?
Make them answer. Make their staff write it down. Call back next week and ask what happened.
Canyon walls of banded Catalina gneiss, a 1.4-billion year-old metamorphic rock component of the Santa Catalina range, which along with the Rincon Mountains, forms a metamorphic core-complex mountain system. Sabino Canyon, Coronado National Forest, Arizona.
regarding cool volcano souvenirs, I don't have the ones actually shaped like the volcano (I have the cyclops) but I've always had a huge soft spot in my heart for those gaudy Italian carved lava rock with the glitter.
Oh wow, these look so neat! I think I know what I gotta get if I ever go to Italy now...:-]
My collection of volcano toys and figurines so far:
(Pretending Mt. Everest is some other volcano bc every other mountain in that set is literally a volcano...Olympus Mons, Fagradalsfjall, blue Fuji, red Fuji, and Diamond Head)
I enjoy collecting little volcano trinkets...if you guys ever see any cool ones, I would love to see it! I also collect (not pictured here) pins, patches, brochures, and other stuff...I might take pics of the full collection in the future.
My current collection goal is to collect more brochures and merch of Sunset Crater and hopefully make a 3D model one day 😝
Whatever the oc art game site is doing, I feel is a reflection of the majority of online OC/fandom art communities and their ignorance to what is considered art.
I've always disliked that a shaded image, even if there's a tiny bit of shading, results in more perceived "effort" than something unshaded. Some artists and some styles don't use shading for whatever reason and it's not lack of skill to shade because sometimes the piece looks stylistically better without the shading. Granted, yes I understand WHY it's additional points due to how the majority of the community perceives art in steps (ie full body is more effort than half body, shading is more effort than flat colors, lines is more effort than sketch, etc) but I don't believe we should be thinking this way.
This is why photography is thought of as "lesser" in spaces like this, why many artists feel guilty about not wanting to line sketches, why it's often that full body images are most desired, why there's very little deviation from the anatomically correct form in most styles, etc.
Yes, it is awesome to just get a simple drawing of your character because I feel like that is the point of the game, but outside of the game I still hardly see that. I see it in trades where people go "we have to match exact efforts" & I see it in commissions where character sizes are split into 3's (bust, halfbody, fullbody) with options of no shade and with shade for different tiers of costs, and then artists complaining they don't actually like to shade but feel like they have to for the work to look "finished".
I'm not saying this to bash anyone or their art, but I'm just thinking how much more awesomesauce it'd be if more people in oc/fandom art spaces thought outside the box when it comes to drawing and what they considered "art"
In all honesty it really pains me to see that art fight doesn't see the merit of photography. They told me they do, but their actions and choices speak louder. Other crafts and artforms are allowed, but why is photography singled out and counted as 0 points when used? What do you mean crediting others' photos isn't necessary? What do you mean I'm not allowed to use my own photos I deliberately or artistically took for collage/photobash? What do you mean I'm not allowed to trace over my own photos?
Their argument to the crediting thing was that they can't moderate/remove every uncredited photos...but every drawn art is required to be credited and canon inspired characters are required to show source of inspiration/credit without nuance of "crediting is not required". Only photographs have that specific wording that credits are not required. If you do believe photography is truly art, is that not art theft in of itself?
And yet...they are worried that tracing 3d models and an artists' own photos = art theft. I think the call might be coming from inside the house guys...idk...and actual art thieves aren't going to see that "no tracing" rule and go ohhh my badddd I shouldn't do that anymore
In the end the site owners make the final call for what is/isn't allowed but I just don't think this was the right choice to make, especially not having any community feedback before implementing no matter how small the changes are
atp the art game site is gonna ban everyone for tracing their own sketches to lineart, only the artists who don't trace their sketches or don't sketch are the only ones that will be spared in the site rapture
