#there was quartz and magnetite and that stuff in there

[ruth-posts-pokemon]

Oh man, I’m gonna have to tell the rock shop story eventually, huh… Trainer tip, you should be sure to read the labels of the pretty tumbled stones before buying them and especially before showing your gang of curious Pokémon.

Just trust me on this one.

[hugsandchaos]

Chaos Deprived AU Stuff

So I’ve been thinking; What exactly was the crystal in the meteorite, and what is Shadow going to do with it? I’ve looked up crystals found in meteorites, and here’s what I found.

Peridot

Opal

Moldavite

Quartz

Calcite

Magnetite

Hematite

I was thinking opal or peridot would be a good choice, and maybe he’d make it into something like a necklace so he could keep it on at all times. Maybe. I think it’d be really neat, but it might be embarrassing for Shadow to wear it out in public. Especially in front of the people who gave it to him. At least, at first it would.

Shadow would develop a habit of rubbing or fidgeting with the crystal in his hand when he’s stressed to try to get a reaction out of the chaos energy inside. This makes it glow a little.

Oh, and just to clear up, the crystal doesn’t have a lot of chaos energy inside of it. Aside from calming Shadow down and forming a shield around itself and the holder, it’s pretty much like a night light.

Another thing I want to mention; Shadow has practiced his chaos abilities a lot over the years. I mean, he did that before The Downfall, but afterwards, he had pretty much nothing stopping him from doing whatever he wanted. Because of where he was mentally at the time, his decision was to practice. And practice. And then practice some more.

So if I ever write him doing something Modern or Mainstream Shadow wouldn’t be able to do, remember that not only is his origin a little different, but he had a lot more time on his hands to explore and practice his abilities.

[birdbrainweekly]

Research blog until GSA: Day 1 of 25

I am not really good at maintaining these, but it is the last 25 days until GSA connects and I still have some data I wanted to collect before then (not necessary, I just want it). So welcome to 'Metamorphic petrologist/geochemist getting her shit together for the final dash'.

note: all of this work is part of one project! What does that mean? It means that everything I will write about in the next 25 days is related to one story. So by the end of this I will explain the full story of these rocks and why doing all of this was important. (This is really the final collect of data for my first paper)

Also: I will try to explain everything I am doing if I feel like explanation is needed for, like, why I am doing the tasks I am doing when necessary because otherwise it is just going to sound like a laundry list of bullshit, so here goes.

Today, I had to clean some beakers today, our lab uses Teflon (fancy plastic) beakers because we work with HF (used to dissolve silicates). It takes at least five days to properly clean beakers, but we usually have some at some halfway stage of cleaning I can pick up from.

I then made sure all the materials I would need to begin dissolving my samples was available (is there enough clean beakers, dissolution sheets, are my samples powdered, do I know how much of each sample I have to dissolve, etc.) This is for running isotopes, in particular I am looking at Sr and Nd to help determine fluid sourcing in my rocks.

A new Miniminuteman video came out, so I put that on while I handpicked garnets crumbs from magnetite and ilmenite crumbs. These garnet crumbs are from the mantle (Middle) part of one very large garnet that I drilled out the individual parts of before grinding up. Why am I doing this? Surprisingly not because I am a masochist but because I also need to liquify them so I can measure Lu/Hf ratios to get ages from the core, mantle, and rim of the garnet to learn

✨the rate that it grew at✨.

After that I reviewed my pelitic schist thin section so I could check if I still agreed with my notes I made on the sample from 5 months ago, so I could begin making a thermodynamic model of these rocks (I use the program perplex. The name speaks volumes...). I will put the initial data in tonight, and revise the model more in depth tomorrow, so I will try to explain it more then.

In this thin section of my rock, you can see a very sad garnet (In black) that gave up (The gray/white stuff and iridescent junky looking stuff around it a.k.a. mica and quartz)

I will try to add an image everyday for the ✨aesthetic✨

[grem-archive]

can i see your rock collection (or at least your favorite rocks)

Had to wait ‘til I had access to it once more to answer this one! I’ll show some favs. I have stuff way prettier or cooler, sure, but these are better.

So these are BAD examples…but 7-year-old me did not understand the so-called importance of a nice specimen. But this is llanite! Named for the Llano Uplift of Texas, they’re little pieces of home if I move away. It’s a very fragile rhyolite that only occurs in Llano, TX, and there is a good outcrop of it along Highway 16 that these were sourced from.

These were found on the same trip! Coming home through Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico after heading south from Glacier National Park in Montana. While hiking in Utah that huge chunk of sandstone nearly crushed some toes on my right foot from a higher ledge. It’s been my prisoner since. Upon further looks it’s very pretty with a lot of color variation. The fulgurite, on the other hand, was found in New Mexico. Very, very lucky lightning glass find, likely from a ground strike on sand. You can’t see all the way through it (the center is collapsed) but it is indeed hollow!

Now I didn’t find these, but Pecos diamonds are my favorite. Full stop. They’re very colorful doubly-terminated quartz crystals! Their name comes from their locality: the Permian Seven Rivers Formation of the Pecos River valley of New Mexico. Sometimes they are a lot more attractive-looking, but mine are a pair of little knobbly gremlins and I stare at them frequently.

A piece of iron meteorite - and don’t let its size fool you, it’s heavier than it looks! Space rock = extremely cool. No other reasoning :D but also my lodestone (a naturally magnetized piece of the mineral magnetite) sticks to it and it’s so fucking neat hdhbdnsbvs

[pigeonfanciersdelight]

My time has come. Behold, the one post I will probably ever make on this Tumblr.

1. The Big Fucker is fluorite and aragonite on a matrix of something that’s probably a carbonate of some kind (likely calcite). The cubic habit of the translucent green crystals, plus the fact that it didn’t dissolve away in water, is the clue. They will glow (fluoresce) under UV light.

2. Salt n Peppa is indeed smokey quartz, and the white/pink crystals are probably a feldspar called microcline. (Do they look like they have little wiggly/wormy lines in them? Definitely microcline. Otherwise, probably another kind of feldspar.) The big pretty crystals formed in an underground pocket where they had room to form nice shapes, and the red stuff it’s on is the rock matrix that was surrounding the pocket. It’s probably a kind of granite, and the red comes from another kind of feldspar.

3. Sparkly Bois. The yellow sparkles are probably pyrite like you said, and the heavy gray things that kind of look like melted cubes or octahedra are galena. Galena is a lead mineral, which is why it’s so heavy. Don’t lick this one.

4. I don’t know jack about fossils, sorry.

5. Helen is the result of a few different processes that happened over time! Can’t really tell what all the exact minerals are from the photo, but basically some minerals (probably calcite and friends) grew in a fluid-filled pocket, and then some of those mineral crystals dissolved away when the chemistry of the surrounding pocket changed, leaving void spaces behind in the shape of the former crystals. Then the fluid chemistry changed again and new, teeny tiny crystals grew on the surfaces of the void spaces. (This crystal habit is called druse or drusy.)

6. Green stuff. Crystal habit isn’t distinct enough to say from a photo. Some common candidates include calcite and fluorite. Both are low on the Moh’s hardness scale and would be easily scratched by a steel knife or nail. If calcite, they would fizz in vinegar. If the crystals are NOT easily scratched by a knife, they could be a lot of other cool things but it would be hard to say without examining them in person.

7. Misc. shinies. The really clear, flat crystals are gypsum. (What drywall is made of!) The thing that looks like a clam is actually probably a brachiopod, which has two shells like a bivalve but different symmetry. (Ok, so I do know a tiny bit about fossils.) The shiny stuff on the granite is probably pyrite but could also be another sulfide mineral.

8. Yep some sorta fossily thing.

9. Sure is garnet! The garnet crystals are in a matrix of schist, a metamorphic rock.

10. Green and blue do appear to be copper minerals, probably malachite and azurite on matrix.

11. Garnet in something green may be a rock called a skarn? Garnets show up most commonly in metamorphic schists that form deep under mountain ranges, but that matrix doesn’t look like a schist. Garnets can also show up in another type of metamorphic rock that is formed more by heat than by pressure. Skarns form in environments where hot, calcium-rich fluids are circulating.

12. Hexagonal is a beryl! It did indeed grow in that shape. Test its hardness--it should NOT be scratched by a knife or nail, and indeed it should easily make a scratch on glass.

13. Glittery is probably mica as you suggest. But to be sure, test it with a magnet (mica is not magnetic) and test its streak by rubbing it on a piece of unglazed ceramic (mica will not leave a colorful streak). If a magnet sticks to it, it may contain magnetite and/or ilmenite. These minerals will also leave a black streak. If a magnet does not stick to it, but it leaves a brick-red streak, it is hematite.

14. Orange is probably calcite as you suggest.

15. Glittery part 2--crystals are too small in photo, would need to be examined in person.

16. Probably is granite, or at least a “granitoid”. Granite rock is defined partly by its texture and partly by its mineral content. A rock with granitic texture is made of irregularly-shaped crystals that fit together kind of like puzzle pieces, most of which are large enough to discern with the naked eye. Granite must have three key minerals: quartz, plagioclase feldspar, and alkali feldspar. It can also have lots of different accessory minerals including all kinds of sparkly micas. Granite rocks usually look grayish overall, but depending on the flavors of the feldspar, you can also find red, black, and green granites, too.

17. Orange 2 is some kind of iron-rich rock experience. Could have formed from a number of different near-surface processes; would have to examine in person to be sure.

18. Can’t have a rock collection without at least one big piece of slag! Slag is a glassy byproduct of a variety of different materials manufacturing processes, mostly related to ceramics and glasses. Pieces of slag look like rocks but not, and often have bubbles. The conchoidal (smooth, dish-shaped) fracture on the broken surface is also a common feature of slag. If it’s heavy and magnetic, that just means it has iron in it.

Caveat: it also may be, possibly, maybe, might be a metamorphic rock called hornfels, which is a very weird-looking, fine-grained rock that forms from contact metamorphism. Basically, underground magma chambers are really hot, and they bake the solid country rock immediately surrounding them. Depending on what that country rock was before it was heated up, it can end up looking a lot like this specimen. Would need to see in person to be sure.

Let us know if you find any more rocks!

Who wants to help me ID some rocks?

So one of the cool things that got left at the new house is the former owner's rock and fossil collection, which they meticulously catalogued by which I mean they left them out under some junipers in the back yard. The power is out, so I'm spraying some of the dirt and leaves off with the hose, but if anyone has guesses I'd love to hear them.

1. The Big Fucker:

(10 in screwdriver for scale)

First clue that there was a secret collection, this was the only one really visible. Pale translucent blue-green cubic crystals and skinny, more opaque/white ones on top of a heavy dull white rock. Pretty, whatever she is.

2. Salt n Peppa

Pretty sure the black stuff is smoky quartz, but what are the white cubes and the red rock it's on?

3. Sparkly Bois:

Two of these- I think the little cubes are pyrite, but what's the dark, shiny/metallic stuff? Very heavy for their size.

4. Assorted Dead Things!

Fossil clams and a coral I think, but if anyone knows anything more specific I'd love to hear it. Pretty sure most of these things are from the Rockies/front range area but genuinely, I don't know where they got them.

5. IDK what she is, but her name is Helen:

Like a bunch of criss-crossing wafers. Not very heavy for her size.

6. Green Stuff:

What are the green crystals coming out of this rock? They're cool, whatever they are.

7. Miscellaneous Shinies:

Assorted small rocks I found while digging. Small dead clam, I think some of that is mica, and I'm really curious about the shiny stuff on the granite (?).

Part 1/2, gonna hose some more rocks while y'all speculate.

[beyondthetemples-ooc]

You are more knowledgeable about stones n stuff then anyone I know besides my cousin (cus it's his job XD) but he's not in the SU fandom. Anyway do you know of any stones that are black/really dark besides Tahitian pearl and I guess more importantly how is the SU fandom when it comes to gem oc's that are not super female? They are genderless right?

Ahh, I’m flattered. X3 (Man, I wish I could find a job in minerology.)

I sorted these into three lists: Gems that are dark/black, followed by gems that CAN be black but aren’t always, and then synthetic/organic non-”gem” minerals.

Black gems: jet (or banded jet), black tourmaline / “schorl”, obsidian/snowflake obsidian, graphite, basalt, tektite, stibnite, romanechite

Gems that are often very dark and aren’t known for being black, but CAN be black: marble, granite, labradorite, hematite, dioptase, boleite, corundum varieties in general, chalcedony, black agate, azurite, parts of peacock ore (bornite or chalcopyrite), boulder opal, chrysocolla, goethite, seraphinite, fluorite, mica, sphalerite, tennantite, andesite,black salt, black talc, osmium, magnetite, chromite, arsenpyrite, galena, molybdenite, ilmenite, pretty much any mineral that’s based on a metal molecule can be black.

^ I have pictures of most of those on my blog, tagged just with their name if you want to see them. (I know for sure I have a ton of dark fluorite and azurite, and I learned like 85% of this list from images I saw and reblogged.

(Also garnet, amethyst, jasper, and snowflake obsidian, and smoky quartz when it’s exposed to very highly intense heat, but those have all been mentioned/used in canon.)

Other minerals that are black, because Crewniverse said that any mineral, even organic and synthetic ones, are fair game in the SU world: coal, pitch, black goldstone, pumice (rarely), black corals, maybe even black seaglass if we really want to stretch.

So, regarding a Gem’s gender: Crewniverse has said that if a Gem OC identifies as male, or genderless, or whatever gender they like: that’s fine! Word of God acceptance right there.

“Super feminine” is subjective. And we’ve seen Jasper, Topaz, Amethyst, and even Rose Quartz all doing things that aren’t traditionally feminine, or designed so they’re not “super feminine”.

Keep in mind, Steven Universe is a social commentary as much as it is a fictional universe. And they are ALL about representation and advocacy.

Certain areas of the fandom aren’t so nice about it, but it’s a matter of finding the right people.