Update 2: ... aaaand I didn't plan on having yet another one here!
Update 1: this is my last post as I move on. Didn't plan it that way, but ending where I began _is_ satisfying.
By the way, "exhuming my thesis" was an inside joke: the geology and tectonics both in my area in N Ontario and the inspiration paper in Alaska talked about "exhumed terranes"; continental blocks that were buried and metamorphosed, displaced and then exhumed back to the surface to their current location.