Compendium Mineralis

Very aesthetic twinning captured by microphotographer Douglas Merson.

That’s a great photo.

Additional details. bsky.app/profile/drme...

New Silurian aculiferan fossils reveal complex early history of Mollusca - Nature Fossils of two new worm-like aculiferan species add to the diversity of this group, showing that evolution in early aculiferans generated unusual forms comparable to other crown-group molluscs.

Outside my area of expertise, but this article feels important. It describes new fossils filling in the early history of the mollusks. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I just assumed that you were related to Popeye: “I'm strong to the finich, cause I eats me spinach…”

These are excellent. Keep at it!

Happy holidays to everyone 🦋. Pentagonite (Xmas tree habit), Wagholi quarry, Pune, Maharashtra, India. #MineralMonday #RocksInTrees

The bladed crystals are rather unusual for astrophyllite from MSH. Nice photo.

Hutchinsonite Yes, I washed my hands

#MineralMonday. Hutchinsonite is an unusual thallium mineral (well, all thallium minerals are unusual), thallium-lead-arsenic sulfide. But it makes pretty red crystals (wash your hands). ⚒️ More #geology richardigibson.substack.com/p/hutchinson...

Wider view of the same location. The crystals formed from sublimation are considerably different in habit from the more familiar blocky crystals of Sicily or Maybee, Michigan, US or Conil, Spain. While relatively common as an element, its high reactivity makes native sulfur fairly rare.

Literally crystallizing from thin air! Sulphur crystals forming at a volcanic vent, Sulphur Banks trail, Volcano National Park, Hawaii, United States. #MineralMonday #Geology

Marialite Na4Al3Si9O24Cl Locality: Marble occurrence, Morogoro, Uluguru Mts (Uruguru Mts), Morogoro Region, Tanzania Original description: A 2.3 cms tall crystal. JSS specimen and photograph. https://www.mindat.org/photo-169082.html CC BY 3.0 John Sobolowski https://www.mindat.org/user-2830.html#0

Gender in mineral names - 54% of minerals are named for people but only 6.1% of those are named for women. Mike Rumsey NHM minerals and colleagues look in depth

doi.org/10.2138/am-2...

👇🏾 Marialite, one of the first two minerals named after women - in this case Maria vom Rath in 1866

Amazing fossil alert.

Jurassic salamander from China. You can see the soft tissue of the eye, gills, limbs, even the folds of its tail. And its last meal its stomach…

🧪 #evolution #paleontology

I’m only posting here now. Twitter still has areas of content that I don’t see anywhere else. And not all my colleagues have shifted, so there’s that. But as a user, I have only good things to say about BlueSky.

Mastodon, but I found the content limited and interface unfamiliar.

Hawaii is a rare place where one can literally watch rocks forming in a (mostly) safe manner. People ask how it smells. All the volatiles have long since left. The flow is nearly silent, save for crackling noises when rain hit the surface and causes the semi-solid surface layer to shatter. (3/3)

It's fresh and flowing directly toward me. The finger at the bottom is only feet away when I took the photo and was inching closer. The surface is cooler and pliable. The feel when applying pressure is reminiscent of bread dough. (2/3)

Smooth flowing lava over only slightly older pahoehoe. Notice that both are still glowing. Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō eruption, north of Chain of Craters Road, Volcano National Park, Hawaii, United States. (1/3)

Ancient Tsunami Tied to Volcanic Flank Collapse in Italy - Eos Stromboli’s volcanic cone may have suffered multiple flank collapses between the 14th and 16th centuries, triggering tsunamis that led to the abandonment of the island.

The Naples #tsunami struck the Tyrrhenian Sea on Nov 25, 1343. Triggered by an #earthquake - or a potential #landslide at Stromboli volcano - it caused significant damage and loss of lives in Naples. The tsunami destroyed ships in Naples and the coast and city of Amalfi. 🧪⚒️

eos.org/articles/anc...

While there is disagreement about the method of formation, a biologic origin is generally favored and has been demonstrated in the laboratory. For a general review, see this article. (3/3)

‘Desert Varnish’ is a loosely defined coating formed on rock outcrops, often dominated by iron and manganese oxides (e.g. birnessite) intermixed with clay minerals (e.g. corrensite), with a typical thickness less than 1mm. (2/3)

Petroglyphs carved into ‘Desert Varnish’, Valley of Fire State Park, Clark County, Nevada, United States. (1/3)

A cross section of part of a gray and light brown domal stromatolite. My foot (women's size 9.5, in a hiking boot) is next to the stromatolite for scale. The dome is about twice as high as my foot is long.

1.85 billion years ago, a massive meteorite struck near what is now Sudbury, Ontario. The resulting tsunami sent this stromatolite over 600 km across the ocean and deposited it near what is now Thunder Bay. So, that was a bad day for those microbes.

#FossilFriday ⚒️

I can tell that your priorities are correct!

Cross-bedding - Wikipedia

Wikipedia has a good article on the subject. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-b...

Classic example of cross-bedding from Zion-Mount Carmel highway, Zion National Park, Utah, United States. In essence, these are fossil sand dunes. #geology

Minerals Display A couple of years ago I submitted to Ideas my Minerals and, to my astonishment, made it to 10k. It has been an amazing journey which brought me to ...

Link to the project page. A must purchase without question. ideas.lego.com/projects/08c...

LEGO minerals are on the way! Congratulations Dario.

For the more technically minded, here are some more details. inis.iaea.org/collection/N...