So tough, an organic mineral competing against a major rock-forming mineral. Shout out to humble #Mellite, formed of octahedral organic molecules associated with brown coal deposits.
🧪⚒️ #MinCup24

#Mellite & #Ompjacite get their names from the Greek for honey & unripe grapes, respectively. Both are found in jewelry for my art vote #MinCup24

Omphacite is appealing to the marine geophysicist/tectonophysicist in me with its high pressure subducted oceanic crust story & wins my physics vote.

Football/half triangle shaped crystal of burnt orange color made from decaying plant matter. The particular form is dotted with black inclusions.

Rhombus shaped honey gem, with a deep raw honey yellow in the center with some flecks of deep orange around the border.

Looking A LOT like ruby zoesite #Omphacite is a jadeite mineral that is sometimes, as above formed with garnets in matrix. Gorgeous piece, not certian that this isn't mislabeled ruby zoesite, but many other examples give me pause. Oblong, dotted with reddish blobs, this green stone has white scattered throughout, and when mining for jade and jadeite that white will turn into runoff in the cutting process.

This is another, lighter green specimin of omphacite, with a great deal of garnets inside. Shark tooth shaped and dotted with red, the green and black banding ate interleaved with white, light green, and vivid green.

ROTD #MinCup24 R1M10: #Mellite versus #Omphacite⚒️🧪

Mellites are organic gems that forms via an inorganic process and is nicknamed the honey gem. (Forms w/ Lignite)

Omphacite: From the Greek for "unripe grapes", contains garnets sometimes. Is a form of jadeite.

www.mineralcup.org/2024/vote/r1...

Round 1 Match 10 — Mineral Cup Mellite vs Omphacite

#MinCup24 R1M10: #Mellite versus #Omphacite

It’s story the surface versus depths as newcomers Mellite and Omphacite join Mineral Cup.

Two minerals with very different and unique origin stories; crustal inorganic processes versus deep tectonic forces. Which story will you choose?