Apologies for the extended downtime of mindat.org - don't worry we are coming back, we just had a database clustering failure which requires a SLOW rebuild. We're just as annoyed as you are! And it doesn't give a progress meter so really can't say how long. Probably today though.

This image is a humorous and scientific reinterpretation of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, comparing human needs to the Igneous QAPF rock classification. The pyramid is divided into five layers, labeled from bottom to top: Physiological needs (red): Includes "food, water, warmth, rest," representing the fundamental human requirements. Safety needs (orange): Refers to "security, safety," emphasizing stability and protection. Belongingness & love needs (green): Highlights "intimate relationships, friends," which symbolize social connections. Granite (blue): Subdivided into "syeno- and monzo-granite, granodiorite, tonalite," humorously comparing human psychological needs to various granite compositions. Quartz-rich Granitoids (purple): Defined as "might not be igneous," reflecting the highest level of need in the context of "Quartz-rich needs."

Meanwhile in the UK...

Mindat.org Mindat.org is the world's leading website about minerals and where they come from.

As you might have noticed mindat.org is in 'READ ONLY' mode right now as we move servers. It's going to take a few more days for the databases to import correctly in their new home (and we did as much as we could in advance) and then we'll be faster than ever before!

A piece of merensky reef rock on a trophy dated 1974, "The Johnson Matthey Award"

So I was given this old trophy that had a rock on it, and turns out it's a piece of "platinum-rich"* ore from the Merensky Reef, South Africa. Some nice visible chromite and sulfides (pentlandite/pyrrhotite?) along with the usual silicate gunk.

* Everything is relative.

Yes, there's a page on mindat.org for flourite

Minerals labelled as 'KILLER MICROS!' showing small specimens of cuprosklodowskite and kasolite from the Munsonoi mine, Congo.

Killer Micros! IYKYK

This is the first time I've seen the autocorrect go that way round!

It would be interesting (but less visually appealing) to see the breakdowns for individual isotopes and to include radioactive decay products as an origin eg He, Pb

LEGO minerals are on the way! Congratulations Dario.

Proterozoic Rocks xkcd.com/3008

The image shows Jolyon's hand holding a flat stone slab containing a fossil of a Keichousaurus, a prehistoric marine reptile. The fossil features an elongated skeleton with a distinct head, long neck, and visible spine and limb bones. Notably, the neck appears to have been sheared by tectonic action, with a misalignment visible where the neck bones meet the head, likely caused by geological forces over time. A label in Korean, English, and Chinese characters identifies the specimen as "Keichousaurus" and provides details about its origin and classification. The stone has a rough, textured surface with natural cracks running through it.

Keichousaurus from China, showing a visible tectonic neck split with a calcite vein! Expertly prepared by Kim Yunghuyn.

Maybe just use the website and add that to your home page

OpenMindat: Open and FAIR mineralogy data from the Mindat database Xiaogang Ma, Jolyon Ralph, Jiyin Zhang, Xiang Que, Anirudh Prabhu, Shaunna M. Morrison, Robert M. Hazen, Lesley Wyborn, Kerstin Lehnert First published: 29 May 2023 https://doi.org/10.1002/gdj3.204Citations: 4

Woohoo!

Marshall Ma's paper on OpenMindat, which I am a co-author on, has just won the Geoscience Information Society Paper of the Year award.

It's all the more special getting awards in academia considering I don't even have a degree. rmets.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

ARTIST’S CONCEPTION OF THE MID-PACIFIC MOUNTAINS If the Pacific Ocean were drained away, the mile-deep sunken islands would emerge as truncated volcanic cones. The original oil painting is by the distinguished scientific illustrator Chesley Bonestell and is based on part of the bathymetric chart of the Mid-Pacific range

1950s illustration of the Pacific without the ocean. From Geological Society of America Memoir 64.

That looks like fuchsite for sure!

The image is a screenshot of a webpage titled "The Rock H. Currier Digital Library." It features a header menu with options such as "Library Home," "Bookshelves," "View by Type," "Using Search," "Administration," and "Add a new Reference." Below that, there is a search bar with dropdown options for selecting search types. A welcome message reads, "Welcome to the Rock H. Currier Digital Library," explaining that the library serves as a reference archive supporting the work in building mindat.org and offering links to original publishers where possible. Beneath the message, there is a "Latest Downloads" section with images of reference documents and their titles/authors listed below. Some examples include: A reference in Russian authored by several individuals in 2024 titled "Инженерная геология [Engineering geology]." A reference from Paul H. Reitan titled "The geology of the Komagfjord tectonic window of the Raipas site, Finnmark, Norway" published in 1963. Other geology-related reports from various authors, including geological surveys from Norway (NGU). The layout is organized with clickable items and icons that indicate whether a PDF is available for download.

There are now 494,884 PDFs available for download in the Rock H. Currier Digital Library.

www.mindat.org/reference.php

Did a thing. Want to be part of the thing? Let us know.

go.bsky.app/3Z5SFJr

Chiral Minerals Hundreds of minerals are chiral, that is, they appear in nature in two forms—left-handed and right-handed. Yet except for quartz, this key structural property has remained, by and large, in shadow in ...

You may have heard of left and right-handed quartz, but did you know that hundreds of minerals are chiral, that is have left and right handed variants?

A new open-access paper by David Avnir explores this...

www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/14...

Because of the continuing downward trajectory of 'the other place', we'll start posting here more!

Ten years ago we went to visit the type locality of Dioptase in Kazakhstan - and an amazing adventure was had.

www.mindat.org/article.php/...

#MinCup23

Don't miss the Dallas Mineral Collecting Symposium, which you can watch live on ZOOM on Saturday August 19, 2023. Also see details of the online auction, where you can get a bargain and support mindat.org (and other worthy causes) at the same time!
https://www.irocks.com/dallas-mineral-collecting

We're setting up a minerals feed for bluesky too. More about that when we've got it done!

I forgot we're on summer time, so you have to wait another hour (nearly) for the new POTD

This year to celebrate a particularly amusing thread where ChatGPT created a new mineral out of its own imagination (see thread at https://www.mindat.org/mesg-619454.html , we created an AI image of it. https://www.mindat.org/photo-1286672.html

We can override this with photos for special occasions. Every April 1st for example we do something silly.

We're always asked "how does the POTD get selected?"

Well, mindat has a bunch (over 50) of managers who help maintain the site, and they can all flag interesting photos as future Photos of the Day. At midnight (UK) time the system chooses one at random from that list for the following day.

Did you know the mindat Photo of the Day changes every day? Well, duh, of course you did. But do you look every day?

In 15 minutes this one will be gone, replaced with something else!

https://www.mindat.org/photo-918741.html

Delighted to :)

You'll also notice the mindat account is being used more here than in 'the other place'

Just had one if the biggest geology nerd-love experiences EVER. @mindat.bsky.social found and followed me first! Probably doesn't seem like a biggie, but y'all have to understand how much I LOVE & frequently used the site for my research & when teaching Intro/Sed/Mineralogy labs. 🥰