Lmst

Today our friends on twitter reminded us is #PiDay 😻🐾 we almost forgot it🙀
Here is our #winter #Pi picture. #Nature is just pawsome 😻 Pi demonstrated b #IceMin

#mathematics #math #PiTag #mineral #ice #MinCup

A perfectly circular ice plate on a River

Let the Semifinals begin in #MinCup 24 with Perovskite vs Rhodochrosite. A boring orthorhombic oxide is pretending to be cubic vs. a trigonal carbonate that takes pride in what it is.
https://www.mineralcup.org/2024/vote/r4m1

#MinCup Round 3 Match 3

Don’t fall for this meat rock nonsense! Sure Rhodochrosite is pretty but vote calcite!

Vote for calcite’s gargantuan role in art history - all of marble art and limestone sculpture, chalk drawing, pigment and extender. If you care about art and art history avenge Quartz and defeat Rhodochrosite!

Vote calcite for fossils! Vote calcite for Viking navigation & birefringence!

#scicomm #artHist #calcite #minerals

Fayum Mummy Portrait of a Woman
ca 2nd century A.D.

Medium: Encaustic
Support: Wood
Size: 34.6 x 11.5 cm
Art period: Antiquity
National Gallery of Art
Object number: 1956.12.1

This portrait employs calcite as a pigment. Via https://colourlex.com/project/fayum-mummy-portrait-of-a-woman/

Self-Portrait at the Age of 34 is a self-portrait by Rembrandt, dating to 1640 and now in the National Gallery in London. The painting is one of many self-portraits by Rembrandt, in both painting and etching, to show the artist in a fancy costume from the previous century.

This painting employs chalk, which is calcite

Michelangelo, Moses (ca. 1513–15), for the Tomb of Julius II. Collection of San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. The Renaissance marble sculpture depicts buff, bearded, seated Moses (with horns on his head likely based on a description in chapter 34 of Exodus in the Vulgate, the Latin translation of the Bible used at that time). It is an extraordinary technical achievement to make flowing hair and lifelike anatomy.

My linocut print on 8” x 8” cream coloured washi paper shows a specimen of rhodochrosite complete with the word “Rhodochrosite” in script in dusky rose. The mineral is printed in tints and shades of dusky rose and cream with some wiggly stripes and irregular concentric rings of colour with the irregular shape of a rock.

#MinCup Round 3 Match 2, Wavellite vs Dioptase. I think we've already established that this is a pro-phosphate environment.

https://www.mineralcup.org/2024/vote/r3m2

I'm sort of happy Perovskite won the last round; it's a lot easier to hate on it than on Stibnite.

Enjoying the #MinCup bracket, people sharing their favorite tidbits, the odd deep dive if I’m feelin it, sometimes voting on sincerely-held opinions about rock facts, but mostly just going by who’s got the best mascot.

a cartoon character is saying ...

#MinCup 24 R1 M13: #Proustite versus #Titanite

Proustite entices with its translucent ruby crystals.

Titanite can form in both igneous and metamorphic environments.

Which shall it be: deep red sulfide proustite, or important indicator mineral titanite?

VOTE: https://www.mineralcup.org/2024/vote/r1m13

Today's #MinCup24 duell is #Kyanite /#Disthen Vs. #Ringwoodite. I am for several reasons in #TeamKyanite. One is the famous phase diagram: kyanite, #sillimanite, #andalusite. It's so famous even my humans know it
#mineral #MinCup #CatsOfMastodon

Simba is hiding his face because his humans are embarrassing

Today's #MinCup duell is #quartz against #quicksilver. I can be flexible as quicksilver & sluggish in reaction like quartz 🙀 So both are #DoesItCat #minerals.
I vote for quartz & show you a #fossil spiritlevel made of quartz😻
#MinCup24 #quarz #mercury #mineral #catsoftwittter #CatsOfMastodon

Ginger tomcat Simba presents a mineral that also served as a fossil spirit level

#MinCup 24 ROUND 1 MATCH 8: #Vivianite vs #Spinel

Is it the popular Lady of Darkness formed by chemical reactions in the presence of decomposition, or is it the ubiquitous and gemmy mineral found everywhere from the mantle to meteorites older than earth?

Which will you choose?

VOTE: https://www.mineralcup.org/2024/vote/r1m08
RESULT: https://www.mineralcup.org/2024/results/r1m

On the left, a clear crystal in a deep green like an underwater scene. On the right, berry-pink crystals top an opaque white rock. Image from the Smithsonian Institute.

#MinCup ROUND 1 MATCH 6: Are you ready for colour as bright blue #Ammineite from guano battles the deep green #Dioptase of the desert?

VOTE: https://www.mineralcup.org/2024/vote/r1m06
RESULTS: https://www.mineralcup.org/2024/results/r1m06

You have 24 hours to pick your champion and campaign for their cause!

#MinCup24 ROUND 1 MATCH 2 rare poisonous & radioactive arsenuranospathite contains uranium & arsenic but corundum’s history as ruby & sapphire in art & jewellery clinches the art vote!

Further, late medieval/Renaissance lapidaries declared ruby a defence against poison, thought to darken in its presence! So it seems apt that corundum should defeat arsenuranospathite.

#MinCup #scicomm #minerals #histsci #artHistory

Title: Renaissance Gimmel Ring with Memento Mori, shown on two angles against a white background

Date: dated 1631

Culture: German

Dimensions: Height 29.61 mm; exterior diam. 23.7 mm; bezel 14.25 x 12.18 mm.; Weight 13.75 grams US size 7.5 UK 0 ½

Classification: Metalwork-Gold

Credit Line: Griffin Collection via The MET website

Accession Number: L.2015.73.1

The image shows the gold sort of puzzle ring which splits in two to reveal memento mori and engraved letters.

“The bezel combines a table-cut diamond on one side with a vivid, red ruby on the other. The paired stones provide the most visible suggestion that there is more to the ring than meets the eye. When opened, the bezel reveals two hidden chambers, and a tiny gold- and white-enameled baby curls inside one cavity, while a similarly constructed skeleton nestles inside its companion.” - MET curator C. Griffin Mann

Brown, lath-like arsenuranospathite from Grube Krunkelbach (Krunkelbach Mine), Menzenschwand, Germany (Field of view: 11.5 mm)

Image via Wikipedia

Each annual battle of the minerals, the #MinCup, I look for my favourite thing: art & physics & the use of the minerals to choose between them

First up: Round 1 Match 1 is Kaolinite vs Abelsonite.

Kaolinite gets the art vote for centuries of ceramics & kaolinite can be used for radiological dating (due to trace Uranium or Thorium). It’s even in Degas’s pastels!

Abelsonite was only discovered in 1969 in oil shale in Utah & doesn’t have any applications.

I vote kaolinite!

#MinCup24 #scicomm

Abelsonite sample (Abelsonite is a nickel porphyrin mineral with chemical formula C31H32N4Ni) from the Green River Formation, Uintah County, Utah, US, via Wikipedia. This mineral is red-orange and shiny on a beige background.

Pastel drawing by Degas, Après le bain, femme s'essuyant (or in English:
After the Bath, Woman drying herself). 103.5 x 98.5 cm. Collection of National Gallery London. The drawing shows a red haired woman draped in white towels, seated on a yellow chair, viewed from the back. She wears yellow slippers and is drying her hair with a towel in her left hand. Her right hand grasps a grey bathtub. The carpet is rusty red and dark blue. The walls are yellow with rose curtain and dark grey foot.

NGL analysis shows that the blue in the carpet contains Prussian blue, artificial ultramarine and a white pigment from chalk and kaolinite.

So... mineral cup ( #MinCup ) 2024 starts in September... #calcite is coming back... was there even a question?
(as long as #dolomite isn't coming back, then I'm in trouble)

Today the #water in my outdoor #waterbowl / #insect- #birdbath / temporarily #frog pool turned into #Ice the solid state of water which some humans define as #mineral and others not🙀
I have a #Cat nap in my heated bed...

#IceMin #MineralCup #MinCup @MineralCup #catsofmastodon

@dgar Geologists mark every September with Mineral Cup ( @MineralCup ), a crowd-favorite tournament to determine the best mineral of the year.

During #MinCup it is common for rock-lovers to drum up votes by showing everyone their favorite photos of the contenders.

The 2023 champion is Zircon.

@Adrenochrome @MineralCup looks like a #MinCup contender to me!

How, you might ask, does a perfectly formed #zircon get into a sapphire?

Sapphire melting temp: around 2030 °C. (wikipedia)
Zircon melting temp: high melting point (over 2500°C). (https://www.ga.gov.au/education/classroom-resources/minerals-energy/australian-mineral-facts/zircon)
Tiny zircons can withstand a lot of what makes and destroys other minerals.

Vote: https://www.mineralcup.org/results/round-4-match-1

#TeamZircon #MinCup23 #MinCup2023 #MineralCup23 #MineralCup2023 #MineralCup #MinCup #SciComm #Science #Minerals #Geology #Mineralogy #Teaching #Education