mineral

Imaggeo On Monday: Hedenbergite – Ilvaite skarn, Calamita, Island of Elba

Samuele Papeschi September 21, 2020

Hedenbergite - Ilvaite skarn, Calamita, Island of Elba. Credit: Samuele Papeschi (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

In this photo taken on the Isle of Elba in Italy you can see several radiating crystals of greenish Hedenbergite, inter-grown with blackish coloured Ilvaite in skarn bodies. Skarn is an unique formation that formed as a result of the interaction between geothermal fluids and the host rock. In this case the geothermal fluids come from the Late Miocene Porto Azzurro monzogranite, and Mesozoic marble ...[Read More]

Colour deficient vision and the geosciences; just another way of looking at things

Simon Jowitt September 18, 2020

Mineralogically complex drillcore from Australia (Photo by Simon Jowitt)

Like a reasonably large proportion of the population, I have colour vision deficiency (also known as colour deficient vision or colourblindness). I’m not going to get into the technical aspects of what this is like as they are covered well here and here, and you can do an Ishihara test, and other tests here, to check your own vision. The other reason I’m not going to discuss the technicalities of ...[Read More]

Imaggeo On Monday: Emoji from meteorites; impact spherule

Seda Özdemir September 14, 2020

Emoji from meteorites; impact spherule. Credit: Seda Özdemir (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

This is a crossed polarized light photomicrograph of an impact spherule; a small mineralisation made when a meteorite hits the Earth and melts the rock at the point of impact, from Barberton Greenstone Belt, in South Africa. These spherules are the only remnants of Early Earth’s meteorite impact history, from between of 3.2 and 3.5 billion years ago. In this photo you can see the K-feldspar ...[Read More]

Imaggeo On Monday: Condensation drop on sulphur

Hazel Gibson September 7, 2020

Condensation drop on Sulphur. Credit: Ulrich Kueppers (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Mineralogy, as a subject, often has a hard time. Despite it’s place at the core of the traditional geological sciences, and its importance in a huge variety of other subjects, mineralogy sometimes has a reputation of being complicated and inaccessible and, well, some people have even called it boring. This is also related to the way that minerals are often hugely misunderstood by non-geoscie ...[Read More]