mineral
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Every now and then, I get to write about a topic that combines geology, history, art, and a little bit of mystery. One of my favourite examples of this is a SciShow video I wrote about azurite, a striking blue mineral that humans have been using to make art for thousands of years. Unlike many
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Every so often, I come across a story in geology that reminds me how much of Earth we still don’t fully understand. Take the Younger Dryas: a sudden, sharp return to ice-age cold about 13,000 years ago. It coincided with the disappearance of mammoths, and with the vanishing of the Clovis people in North America.
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Like many children, I was captivated by museum gift shops, especially the shelves of glittering geodes. Crack one open and you’re rewarded with a surprise display of crystals hidden inside. Those pocket-sized treasures, though, are nothing compared to the largest geode in the world – one so vast it could swallow the entire gift shop
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At first glance, epidote might look like a perfectly ordinary rock: greenish, slightly glassy, nice enough to put on your bookshelf. But this mineral is far more than just decoration. Epidote could help unlock the mystery of life’s earliest origins on Earth, and perhaps even beyond. The fossil record is our best archive for understanding
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Back in the 1840s, the hills of California glittered with the promise of fortune. Prospectors rushed west, hoping to strike it rich in the Gold Rush, only to find themselves duped by an impostor: pyrite, better known as fool’s gold. But pyrite might not be as foolish as we once imagined. Far from worthless, it’s
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When you picture the materials behind our modern gadgets, gemstones probably don’t spring to mind. We expect wires, silicon, and circuits — not jewelry-box treasures. Yet one humble mineral, tourmaline, bridges the glittering world of gemstones with the hidden forces powering today’s technology. Tourmaline is one of Earth’s most colorful crystals. It can emerge pink,
Leila Battison 