Photo of Dr Joseph McNeil.
Our second Keynote speaker for BPSC 2026 is Dr Joseph McNeil (Natural History Museum, London).
Dr McNeil is a planetary scientist specialising in the geology of early Mars. He uses orbital remote sensing to investigate how martian environments and habitability evolved through time.
An outside view of the Waterhouse building of Natural History Museum, London, with blue sky and a few clouds. A bronze cast of a diplodocus dinosaur is in the foreground.
A colourful image of impact crater densities on part of the Moon. Red and green rays emanate from the bottom left, the result of millions of secondary impact craters.
We have an STFC-funded PhD project at the @nhm-london.bsky.social. Work with me, @joemcneil.bsky.social, @katie-h-joy.bsky.social, and Gareth Collins, and share in the fun of secondary impact craters and landing sites!
tinyurl.com/nez8dzsy
The mounds are geochemically similar to the plains of Oxia Planum, the future landing site of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover. Thus, when ExoMars is exploring these plains, it will also be exploring widespread regional environments beyond the landing site alone.
These erosional remnants contain hundreds of meters of clay-rich stratigraphy, indicating liquid water was present here for a substantial amount of time. The clays are bounded above and below by unaltered material, documenting (almost) the entire aqueous history of the region.
The headlines: Mars' highlands once extended hundreds of kilometres further north in the Chryse Planitia region. In the Noachian, between 3.8 and 4.0 billion years ago, erosion removed the edge of the highlands, leaving remnant mounds.
I am happy to announce the publication of the final part of my @openuniversity.bsky.social PhD work, which has been expanded during my UKSA postdoc @nhm-london.bsky.social: "Dichotomy retreat and aqueous alteration on Noachian Mars recorded in highland remnants”, in @naturegeosci.bsky.social.
Some parts of Mars are deliciously colourful.
Here's part of the western Ladon basin, as seen in false colour by the CaSSIS instrumnet on the TGO spacecraft.
Image no. MY35_012192_201_0, taken in January 2021.
(Credit: ESA/TGO/CASSIS/Peter Grindrod)
Super excited to start fresh here (and by “start fresh”, I mean “lurk in the background and occasionally post when I remember”, as is tradition).
My research covers many aspects of martian stratigraphy, geomorphology, and mineralogy, and I’m always up for chatting about planetary science in general.
I use remote sensing data to study the role of water on ancient Mars. Basically, if it was once wet, is now rock, and happens to be on Mars, I’m interested in investigating it from orbit. But I’m more than happy to look at any and all planetary surfaces!
Hey everyone! Some introductory stuff: I’m Joe, a postdoc at the Natural History Museum in London. Like many of you, I’ve decided it’s time to jump on the great Bluesky bandwagon.
Is this thing on?
