“It’s an unassuming rock, greenish in color, and just over 4cm in its longest dimension. And yet this little piece of sandstone holds important clues to all our futures.” So opens a BBC story, “Climate Change: A Small Green Rock’s Warning About Our Future,” which features a discovery by Professor of Geology Christine Siddoway, presented this spring at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly. Usually held in Vienna, Austria, this year’s meeting was convened online because of COVID restrictions.

Siddoway presented in the session “The Antarctic Ice Sheet: Past, Present and Future Contributions Towards Global Sea Level.” Her abstract caught the attention of the EGU media team, who invited Siddoway to speak at the “Scientific Sleuthing: Geoforensics & Fingerprinting” press conference in April. The event provided an opportunity for journalists to learn about some of the latest detection techniques that geoscientists use to trace geological materials to their point of origin on Earth, or in geological time.