Pink crystals of Pyroxmangite

For this #MineralMonday, I’m taking advantage of my new macro photography setup to showcase the beautiful deep pink color of a cluster of pyroxmangite crystals from Brazil.

View it here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q28y...

#MineralMonday #mineral #crystal

Specimen of shiny gold coloured pyrite in the shape of a large pyramid with two smaller ones coming off its left side. The faces have small growth marks in them in a squiggly shape. It’s on a black background and part of a plexiglass label below it saying pyrite. At the Sorbonne.

One of my favourites!! You might be used to seeing cubes of fool’s gold but sometimes pyrite is more pyramidal in shape. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

#MineralMonday Anglesite, Lavaderos, Mexico. Crystals are about 2-3 mm each. ⚒️ #geology . No MAGA! Science = Resistance! #standupforscience

Photograph of a mineral specimen in an acrylic box with foam. Brown to purple Axinite crystal cluster with tabular triclinic crystals.

I bestow upon thee a cute little Axinite crystal cluster for #MineralMonday. Have a wonderful day y'all!

A thin section image taken using a petrographic microscope. A relict olivine crystal with ragged edges and characteristic bright interference colours is surrounded by a mush of fine-grained crystals derived from the break down of the olivine. The breakdown layer is itself divided in tow, with an outer orangey layer and an inner white layer.

Beautiful olivine breakdown texture in a peralkaline syenite.

#thinsectionthursday #geology #science #minerals #rocks #microscope #microscopy

Liverpool is now added to the Modernist app alongside Bristol, Glasgow, Sheffield and Manchester. Have a look.. it's all free. the-modernist.org/blogs/news-1...

A photo of a mineral specimen. The dark red translucent crystal in the center of the photo is Cinnabar and it is sitting on white rhombohedral crystals of Dolomite. Two clear Quartz crystals are also growing on the Dolomite and can be seen in the top right of the photo and directly beneath the Cinnabar. This specimen is from Hunan Province, China.

Happy #MineralMonday everyone! Today I got for you a excellent Cinnabar crystal on Dolomite with Quartz from Hunan Province, China. Cinnabar is toxic from it's mercury content so it should be stored safely.

#MineralMonday Kyanite, Barra de Salinas, Minas Gerais, Brazil. 8.8 cm. ⚒️ #geology . No MAGA! Science = Resistance! #standupforscience

White stilbite in the shape of a bow tie shape on a black background with a small white label with 24 on it below it. At the Hunterian.

A bow tie!! This is a classic form of the zeolite mineral stilbite. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Photo of nicely folded rock layers at a cliff near the sea.

Happy #FoldFriday and have a nice weekend! ⚒️🧪

Photo from Kirkeporten, Norway. #photography

Thin Section Thursday!
Bornite intergrown with chalcopyrite, Reflected Light. Photo by Ingrid Kjarsgaard (c)
You can contribute too! Send image(s) and short caption to akoziol1 (at) udayton dot edu. #thinsectionthursday

American Mineralogist:
Growth rims in uraninite: Evidence of episodic changes in hydrothermal fluid composition in the Rohil uranium deposit, Rajasthan, India
Ajoy K. Padhi, Mrinal Kanti Mukherjee, B.S. Bisht, and B. Saravanan
doi.org/10.2138/am-2...

A plane-polarized image of a remnant garnet within a larger ovoid area that now contains brown biotite and quartz.

The garnet is black in this cross-polarized image, quartz grey, and biotite and white mica colorfully birefringent.

Biotite replacing garnet, from the Willoughby area of the Vermont Appalachians.

#ThinSectionThursday #Vermont #Geology #Metamorphism

crystals of Iodargyrite from australia

A beautiful Iodargyrite for this #MineralMonday, with the simple formula AgI.

Carefully kept away from light, as silver iodide is sensitive to light exposure — a property that was instrumental in the invention of photography.

Well-formed crystals from Australia.

Mineral Monday!
Formation of pseudotachylytes by Mattia Pistone
A rock undergoing fracturing (dilatant cracking) and friction melting partially melts at lower temperature than frictional melting alone.
#MSACommunications #MineralMonday #pseudotachylyte #pseudotachylite #partialmelting

A microscope photo of a mineral specimen. The central clear tabular hexagonal crystal is Lévyne-Ca. This specimen comes from Grant County, Oregon.

It's #MineralMonday! Today I got a recent acquisition of Lévyne-Ca. I absolutely adore zeolites and this is probably my favorites! This specimen comes from Oregon (I'd love to find some there one day).

#MineralMonday Hemimorphite (zinc silicate) group 3 mm wide in a cavity of and tipped by brown-orange descloizite. Democrat Mine, Lemhi County, Idaho USA. #geology . No MAGA! Science = Resistance! #standupforscience

Cross polarised light view of pegmatitic dolerite. Field of view is mainly large clinopyroxene prisms showing strong cleavage and second order interference colours. Two olivine crystals on right show fracture while a band of plagioclase laths run down the centre showing simple and polysynthetic twinning.

Pegmatitic dolerite from Fair Head, County Antrim in XPL for #ThinSectionThursday. Same location as two weeks ago but much coarser grain size. Stunning clinopyroxene showing birefringence progressions at edges and cracks, plus fractured olivine and twinned plagioclase. 🧪⚒️🌋

A backscattered-electron image of mostly hornblende, centered on a bright illmenite grain surrounded by titanite.

Titanite encircling illmenite in an amphibolite-facies metabasalt.

#ThinSectionThursday #Metamorphic #Titanite

Thin Section Thursday! Coronitic and symplectite texture in a cpx-ilm-grt amphibolite from Precambrian basement of Southern Brasilia Orogen, city of Campinas - SP - Brazil. Shown in plane and cross-polarized light. Contributed by Helena Paiva.
#thinsectionthursday

Silvery and reddish mica specimen in the shape of a broken star with four points with multiple layers on a black background. At the Canadian Museum of Nature.

Specimen consisting of multiple thin books of pale yellow mica in the shape of stars coming off of matrix in multiple angles. It sits on a plastic wrap in a cardboard tray. At the Canadian Museum of Nature.

Have you ever seen mica in the shape of a star? Muscovite is more commonly seen as books of near hexagonal layers. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Mineral Monday: Babingtonite in North Carolina

Babingtonite (Ca2Fe2+Fe3+Si5O14(OH) ), an inosilicate, is present as mm-scale crystals lining a fracture from the Caldwell Quarry in Lenoir, NC.
By Chris Tacker, NC State Museum
#MSACommunications #MineralMonday #mineral #babingtonite #northcarolina

Thin Section Thursday! Rapid growth of olivine in a basalt experiment. Features skeletal branching (thicker, higher birefringence) and progressive infilling (lower birefringence domains). Crystal is about 1mm in size. XPL Contributed by Thomas Shea, Univ. of Hawai’i
#thinsectionthursday

A small pale purple round specimen composed of many crystals mounted on a rod on a frosted plinth in front of a grey background. Sides of two specimens can be seen on either side. At the Royal Ontario Museum.

I love round specimens, especially snowball-like ones!! This is suolunite, a rare mineral. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Title: Mineral Monday: Mercury, the Sulfur rich planet by Emily Fischer

MESSENGER X-Ray Spectrometer (XRS) surface composition maps of Mercury (from Nittler et al., 2020, Icarus). Si is estimated at ~25 wt%. The spatial correlation between Mg and S is consistent with the presence of Mg-bearing sulfides such as niningerite (MgS) at the surface.

BSE image of a high-temperature, low-pressure experimental run product from Namur et al. (2016, EPSL) showing FeS and mixed Mg-Ca-Fe sulfide phases, analogues for the exotic sulfide mineralogy expected on Mercury's surface.

Hollows on Mercury's surface and proposed formation stages (from Deutsch et al. 2025, JGR Planets). These rimless depressions are unique in the solar system These minerals may also be behind one of Mercury’s strangest features: hollows. These bizarre, rimless depressions are unique to Mercury and are still forming today! The leading idea is that sulfide minerals destabilize under Mercury’s extreme surface conditions and essentially sublimate away, leaving shallow pits behind.

Mineral Monday by Emily Fischer
Mercury is one of the most chemically reduced bodies in the solar system, meaning very little free oxygen. It likely hosts a wild suite of sulfide minerals: oldhamite (CaS) and niningerite (MgS), and potentially exotic Na- and K-bearing sulfides.
#MineralMonday

#MineralMonday Struvite, magnesium ammonium phosphate, Bladder stones from a dog.⚒️ #geology . No MAGA! Science = Resistance! #standupforscience

Microscope photo of a mineral specimen. It consists of black spheres of Todorokite on clear needle like crystals of Tiptopite. This specimen is from Custer Co., South Dakota.

A quick #MineralMonday from me today! I present black balls of Todorokite on clear acicular Tiptopite! Very obscure and weird friends for y'all!

A purple cube of fluorite with background celestine is attached to an acrylic base. Several smaller fluorites in various states of disrepair are scattered about on the matrix.

Height of the entire specimen is 6.35 cm.

Lovely purple fluorite from Mexico for #MineralMonday.
I call these Tule Mine specimens "Borg Cubes" for reasons that will be obvious to fans of Star Trek: TNG
From my collection.

#fluorite #rockcollecting #mineralspecimen #Mexicanminerals

Photo of dark and light rock layers coming across the view at an angle with the layers going in a circle in a distance. The layers are partially submerged in water with the sea in the distance.

The Ladies Skerrs Dome, part of the larger Berwick Monocline, on the shore. It’s composed of sandstones, limestones, and mudstones. #FridayFold ⚒️🧪

Big red boulder of chert behind a small green boulder. The bedding in the chert is folded into a sideways V shape. No scale.

#FridayFold red chert at Black Sands Beach, Marin Headlands ⚒️