#earthsci — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #earthsci, aggregated by home.social.
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#WeekendReading: Tangunan et al.'s short but insightful piece on the uncertainties behind Earth’s timelines.
Link: https://pastglobalchanges.org/publications/pages-magazines/pages-magazine/138913
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Round 1 Match 4: Lovely peacock ore bornite gets arts points as a source of copper, but so is rare carrollite, which is also a source of cobalt… and cobalt is important for pigments including cobalt violet, cobalt yellow, cobalt titanite green, and of course, cobalt blue.
#OreCupCobalt blue can be prepared by heating a mixture of cobalt (II)-chloride CoCl2 · 6H2O and aluminum oxide Al2O3.
Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/vote-results/results-r1m4
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Voting for minerals is back this week with the new #OreCup! I am taking my art and physics applications voting scheme from the #MinCup25, but the #OreCup25 is making it hard pitting 2 strong contenders against each other in the first round! Found worldwide Copper & Galena have been used since antiquity (see the woodcut of early Galena smelting via Agricola here). Both used for pigments (as with the copper-based verdigris used in this Van Eyck).
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Voting for minerals is back this week with the new #OreCup! I am taking my art and physics applications voting scheme from the #MinCup25, but the #OreCup25 is making it hard pitting 2 strong contenders against each other in the first round! Found worldwide Copper & Galena have been used since antiquity (see the woodcut of early Galena smelting via Agricola here). Both used for pigments (as with the copper-based verdigris used in this Van Eyck).
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Voting for minerals is back this week with the new #OreCup! I am taking my art and physics applications voting scheme from the #MinCup25, but the #OreCup25 is making it hard pitting 2 strong contenders against each other in the first round! Found worldwide Copper & Galena have been used since antiquity (see the woodcut of early Galena smelting via Agricola here). Both used for pigments (as with the copper-based verdigris used in this Van Eyck).
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Voting for minerals is back this week with the new #OreCup! I am taking my art and physics applications voting scheme from the #MinCup25, but the #OreCup25 is making it hard pitting 2 strong contenders against each other in the first round! Found worldwide Copper & Galena have been used since antiquity (see the woodcut of early Galena smelting via Agricola here). Both used for pigments (as with the copper-based verdigris used in this Van Eyck).
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Voting for minerals is back this week with the new #OreCup! I am taking my art and physics applications voting scheme from the #MinCup25, but the #OreCup25 is making it hard pitting 2 strong contenders against each other in the first round! Found worldwide Copper & Galena have been used since antiquity (see the woodcut of early Galena smelting via Agricola here). Both used for pigments (as with the copper-based verdigris used in this Van Eyck).
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A tough call for the #MinCup25 semi-final but I think I have to give dioptase the arts vote as a pigment since ancient times (i.e. on Neolithic sculpture, Asian murals & Russian icons), though ‘reindeer blood’ tenebrescent, & phosphorescent, tugtupite “King of Fluorescent Minerals” is also a gem, gaining both art and physics points from me.
Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r4m02
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Cuprosklodowskite was mistakenly named for sklodowskite, in turn named for Marie Skłodowska-Curie. Dioptase has been used as a pigment since ancient times. You find it on Neolithic sculpture. Asian murals & Russian religious icons. It’s also used in jewellery. Dioptase wins the arts vote!
#MinCup25Vote for #dioptase here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3m04
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Look “space green” kosmochlor may be of meteorite origin and occasionally carved as it’s associated with jadeite, but blue kyanite definitely gets the arts vote for jewelry and use in porcelain and pottery glazes. Plus is gets physics points as an index mineral. #MinCup25
Vote for kyanite here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3m03
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Haüyne, formed in magma chambers, is pretty, blue & can fluoresce. But electrically conductive iron-ore hematite is an absolute giant of art history, used as red ochre, going back at least 164,000 years to Pinnacle Point Caves! Also called Venetian, mars or English red.
Vote hematite! #MinCup25
Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3m01
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While iron-nickel alloy taenite gets physics points for its meteorite origin, magnetism & Widmanstätten patterns kyanite gets physics points as an index mineral.
Plus lovely blue kyanite definitely gets the arts vote for jewelry and use in porcelain and pottery glazes. #MinCup25
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While molybdenite gets some physics points (source of Re for geochronology, Mo used as a catalyst, battery electrodes, alloys of iron & semiconductors),
Dioptase can be made into jewelry & (though a rare pigment) has been on artwork used since Neolithic times so it wins my art vote!
#MinCup25Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r2m06
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Baryte might be useful geochronology but you can’t vote against 164,000 years of art history!
From cave painting to today! Electrically conductive hematite is a pigment with a storied history in red ochre & chalk.
Vote for art & human culture. Vote hematite! #MinCup25
Vote for hematite here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/results/r2m03
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Both wavellite and dioptase are sometimes made into jewelry but (though a rare pigment) dioptase has been on artwork used since Neolithic times so it wins my art vote!
See for instance Neolithic sculpture from Jordan, some ancients Asian murals & Russian religious icons.
#MinCup25Vote for dioptase here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1m10
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Kosmochlor is named for its occurrence in meteorites and is a component of jadeite (used in jewelry and carving) but azurite has been known and used as a pigment since antiquity so for its ubiquity and beauty I am giving it my art vote. It played an important role in the history of blue! #MinCup25
Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1m09
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Baryte has an interesting history, bamboozling alchemists, being the source of barium, and is used in paints and geochronology, but for sheer cultural impact across millennia I have to give the art vote to silver. Plus silver has some important scientific uses too, prized for properties ranging from antibiotic to electrical conductivity.
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Perovskite can form in the mantle or a Brown dwarf but it’s still no match for the undeniable impact of calcite on art!
Calcite has brought us all of marble art and limestone sculpture, chalk drawing, pigment and extender. Also fossils! Trilobite eyes! Plus: birefringence. VOTE CALCITE! #MinCup25