#geology
Sampling underwater chert quarries in northwest Florida. A few weeks of working in the Wacissa, Aucilla, and St. Marks Rivers is paying off with some awesome new information about submerged prehistoric quarries!
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When your project area floods, you have to adapt. The sites are high and dry, but the access roads are swamped due to biblical rains and consequently high rivers. The floodwaters are quickly receding though, and we carry on! This was not quite what I had in mind for underwater archaeological fieldwork…
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Summer Fieldwork 2018- Suwannee chert outcrop in northwest Florida. I will be sampling this location later this summer. Samples collected here will be characterized using neutron activation analysis (NAA) and laser ablation-inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometery!
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Archaeology perks: encountering feral rhesus macaques while at work. They’re MEAN, and this one was drawn to us both curiosity and a desire to get in our lunch cooler. Can you spot him to the left of our dive flag?
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Recently, I’ve been working on analyzing surficial weathering of chert using Laser Ablation-Inductively Coupled Plasma-Mass Spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS). In order to isolate the weathered surfaces for top-down analysis, chert fragments were mounted in epoxy, cut, ground, and polished. Because the ablation cell is small and geologic samples and lithic artifacts are often prohibitively large, I designed custom sample cups and had them 3D printed. These cups were the right size for the ablation chamber and helped to align the chert samples perfectly. A few failed (leaked), but they still served their purpose in mounting the chert samples.
Tomorrow I will analyze the samples! More updates soon!
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Neutron Activation Analysis sample preparation, including preparing analytical controls and sealing vials!
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If anyone is curious as to why it says morganite/aquamarine, it’s because those are both forms of beryl that are different colors. The pink/orange section is morganite, and the aquamarine is, well, aquamarine color. Beryl is probably most well-known for when it’s green- in which case it’s an emerald.
You can see the outline of an incomplete or broken hexagon for this piece. It wasn’t cut this way; beryl has a hexagonal crystal structure and often grows in perfect hexagons naturally.
do we have any geologists logged on here today ??? i feel like learning about *rocks*and/or~minerals~
@snowflakeeel You ever see a post that looks like it was made for you? Anyways:
- Ruby and Sapphire are actually the same gem (corundum), but Ruby is made with more chromium. Any corundum of any color other than red is called a sapphire.
- Every variety of quartz has the same chemical structure, SiO2. They get fun colors because of where and how they form. This includes Jaspers and Agates as well- they’re all technically quartzes!
- Pyrite, also known as Fool’s Gold, is actually way cooler than normal gold because it grows in perfect cubes!
- Sometimes a reflective band of mineral gets included in a growing gemstone, making it look like there’s light trapped inside!
- Some rocks are incredibly dangerous to be handled, like Malachite or Cinnabar. However, some are edible. Salt is a rock! Also, Asbestos is classified as a mineral.
- Opals (AKA one of the coolest gemstones in existence) are made when running water pushes silicon and carries it into little crevices. Sometimes, fossils will become opalized!
- The smooth rocks you see in stores are tumbled rocks. They’re usually mechanically tumbled because tumbling a gemstone or rock naturally takes thousands upon thousands of years.
- Sometimes, gems can be created in laboratories. This is usually where commercial diamonds come from. However, few gemstones are only man-made, like goldstone and crackle quartz.
- The famous Hope Diamond, the ‘cursed’ diamond, is actually not the most expensive diamond in the world- that title goes to the Koh-I-Noor diamond last time I checked. This diamond is so priceless that ‘only god or women can wear it with impunity’, as told by a Hindu legend.
- In 1969, a ruby-powered laser brighter than the sun was bounced off of the moon.
- Most of the earth’s crust is made up of Peridotite. It looks like mint-chocolate chip ice cream.
nowTHAT’S what we’re talking about!!! Thank you for those sexy geology facts!!!
Oh girl this was my childhood hyperfixation, here we go!
-The Koh-I-Noor, mentioned above, was also supposedly cursed. It’s been some time since I researched it, but if I recall correctly, the cursed was reportedly broken after the gem was re-cut. This happens occasionally with cursed gems, as it did for the Black Orlov.
-Speaking of notable diamonds, it’s worth mentioning that the largest diamond in the world, and the largest diamond ever found are actually different stones.
-The largest diamond ever found was the Cullinan, found in the Premier Diamond Mine in South Africa, in 1905. It weighed 3,106 carats. HOWEVER, it was cut the next year into 9 larger and 96 lesser stones. (Now, sadly, the history of this diamond- and most notable diamonds tbh- is steeped in British imperialism. Which is why the largest pieces are in the British Crown Jewels today.)
-The largest diamond in known existence is the Golden Jubilee. It was found 80 years later in THE SAME MINE. It was only cut into the one large piece weighing a little over 545 carats, outweighing the largest piece of the Cullinan, which is only 530 carats.
-Quick sidebar, the word “carat” comes from “carob,” as in the bean. Before standardized weight, gems would be weighed against carob beans. One carob bean is one carat.
I don’t wanna just do the history of the big sparkly ones, so I feel I owe it to ya’ll to do some just cool gem facts.
-Sometimes, yellow sapphire and blue sapphire will grow together in such thin stripes that it’s perceived as green.
-Other gems that grow in stripes include tourmaline- which has the widest coloration variety of any gemstone. The most notable occurrence of this is when pink and green tourmaline grow together. It’s called watermelon tourmaline and is often cut to showcase the coloration.
-Amethyst and citrine do this as well, since they’re both forms of quartz that get their coloration from titanium impurities. It’s called ametrine.
You would be forgiven for thinking that this was a photo of an ice shelf.
But it is not. It is a sprawling limestone formation called “Pamukkale” or “cotton Castle” in southwest Turkey. Over the past 400,000 years, a complex of seventeen separate hot springs has been depositing snow white travertine limestone in a series of terraces and waterfalls. The formation is over 2,700 metres long, 600 metres wide and 160 metres high. The springs are present due to the many cracks and fissures in the earth’s surface here due to high tectonic activity. The temperature of the spring water as it emerges at the surface ranges between 35–56°C (95–133°F). Flowing at a rate of 510 litres per second, the water is saturated with calcium carbonate, and as it reaches the surface carbon dioxide is released into the air, allowing the water to deposit the calcium carbonate until its carbon dioxide levels are balanced with those in the air. Initially deposited as a jelly-like substance, the calcium carbonate eventually hardens into travertine. The result is this beautiful landscape which is one of the major tourist attractions in Turkey.
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Acrílico en tela
(110×60cm)
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#acrílico #acrylicart #acrylic #luz #colour #markerpen #color #sketch #contemporaryart #abstractart #artwork #arte #art #outsiderart #abstractgeometric #geology #mixmediaart #mixedmediaartwork #artechileno #instachile #geometricdesign #geometryart #geometry #patterns #intuitiveart #nonobjectiveart #biomorphic (en Ñuñoa, Chile)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B1HcdgRF6FQ/?igshid=p39627g8lc95
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Acrílico y policromo en papel
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#canson #policromo #polychromos #acrílico #acrylicart #luz #colour #markerpen #color #sketch #contemporaryart #abstractart #artwork #arte #art #outsiderart #abstractgeometric #geology #mixmediaart #mixedmediaartwork #instachile #geometricdesign #geometryart #geometry #patterns #intuitiveart #nonobjectiveart #biomorphic (en Ñuñoa, Chile)
https://www.instagram.com/p/B0tYWJ_J5iY/?igshid=1v2l1tlcfzf05
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Policromo y acrílico en papel #canson 300g
#policromo #polychromos #acrílico #acrylicart #luz #colour #markerpen #color #sketch #contemporaryart #abstractart #artwork #arte #art #outsiderart #abstractgeometric #geology #mixmediaart #mixedmediaartwork #instachile #geometricdesign #geometryart #geometry #patterns #intuitiveart #nonobjectiveart #biomorphic #architectureart (en Ñuñoa, Chile)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BzmQHK5FSco/?igshid=130qd2wk0it7w
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#polychromos #acrílico #luz #acrylicart #colour #light #color #contemporaryart #abstractart #artwork #arte #art #outsiderart #abstractgeometric #geology #minerals #mixmediaart #mixedmediaartwork #instachile #geometricdesign #geometryart #alpaca #patterns #intuitiveart #apacheta #biomorphic #llama #atacamadesert (en Ñuñoa, Chile)
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bys8nV0lurl/?igshid=6mrcb1pin4s7
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Acrílico en madera
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#policromo #polychromos #acrílico #luz #acrylicart #colour #light #color #contemporaryart #abstractart #artwork #arte #art #outsiderart #abstractgeometric #geology #minerals #mixmediaart #spaceart #mixedmediaartwork #instachile #geometricdesign #geometryart #geometry #patterns #intuitiveart #nonobjectiveart #biomorphic (en Ñuñoa, Chile)
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByYiWrKFs4h/?igshid=1ovyuuo5d94tr
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Acrílico en madera
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#acrílico #madera #acrylicart #acrylicpaint #acrylicpainting #wood #art #arte #contemporaryart #abstractart #artwork #abstractpainting #outsiderart #abstractgeometric #artbrut #geology #abstractexpressionism #fluidpainting #instachile #patterns #intuitiveart #biomorphic (en Ñuñoa, Chile)
https://www.instagram.com/p/ByQhsThFHhN/?igshid=1q3ymkiyhz0jn
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