#mincup25 — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #mincup25, aggregated by home.social.
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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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While blue kyanite is used in jewelry, porcelain & pottery glazes, plus gets physics points as an index mineral, it’s the extraordinary ‘reindeer blood’ tenebrescent, & phosphorescent tugtupite “King of Fluorescent Minerals” which is also a gem, gaining both art and physics points for me. #MinCup25
Vote tugtupite in the Mineral Cup 2025 finale here:
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Still please asking #Mosstodon folks + others to consider voting for rock moss of the deserts, Dioptase in #MinCup25, thank you. 🙏 See post above and its replies for earlier photos! 🥦
https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote
#TextureTuesday likewise in photos above! It's the #WizardOfOz choice as the "desert emerald", so head down the yellow brick road to the Desert Emerald City for a visit! Team #Elphaba needs your votes to help, #Wicked fans! 😉
2,5 hours left to vote! If it goes through, the finale starts right after at midnight UK time, so please vote for dioptase over Kyanite tomorrow as well! 🍀
((Or tugtupite if it wins tonight :blobcat_party: ))
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Still please asking #Mosstodon folks + others to consider voting for rock moss of the deserts, Dioptase in #MinCup25, thank you. 🙏 See post above and its replies for earlier photos! 🥦
https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote
#TextureTuesday likewise in photos above! It's the #WizardOfOz choice as the "desert emerald", so head down the yellow brick road to the Desert Emerald City for a visit! Team #Elphaba needs your votes to help, #Wicked fans! 😉
2,5 hours left to vote! If it goes through, the finale starts right after at midnight UK time, so please vote for dioptase over Kyanite tomorrow as well! 🍀
((Or tugtupite if it wins tonight :blobcat_party: ))
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Still please asking #Mosstodon folks + others to consider voting for rock moss of the deserts, Dioptase in #MinCup25, thank you. 🙏 See post above and its replies for earlier photos! 🥦
https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote
#TextureTuesday likewise in photos above! It's the #WizardOfOz choice as the "desert emerald", so head down the yellow brick road to the Desert Emerald City for a visit! Team #Elphaba needs your votes to help, #Wicked fans! 😉
2,5 hours left to vote! If it goes through, the finale starts right after at midnight UK time, so please vote for dioptase over Kyanite tomorrow as well! 🍀
((Or tugtupite if it wins tonight :blobcat_party: ))
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Still please asking #Mosstodon folks + others to consider voting for rock moss of the deserts, Dioptase in #MinCup25, thank you. 🙏 See post above and its replies for earlier photos! 🥦
https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote
#TextureTuesday likewise in photos above! It's the #WizardOfOz choice as the "desert emerald", so head down the yellow brick road to the Desert Emerald City for a visit! Team #Elphaba needs your votes to help, #Wicked fans! 😉
2,5 hours left to vote! If it goes through, the finale starts right after at midnight UK time, so please vote for dioptase over Kyanite tomorrow as well! 🍀
((Or tugtupite if it wins tonight :blobcat_party: ))
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Still please asking #Mosstodon folks + others to consider voting for rock moss of the deserts, Dioptase in #MinCup25, thank you. 🙏 See post above and its replies for earlier photos! 🥦
https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote
#TextureTuesday likewise in photos above! It's the #WizardOfOz choice as the "desert emerald", so head down the yellow brick road to the Desert Emerald City for a visit! Team #Elphaba needs your votes to help, #Wicked fans! 😉
2,5 hours left to vote! If it goes through, the finale starts right after at midnight UK time, so please vote for dioptase over Kyanite tomorrow as well! 🍀
((Or tugtupite if it wins tonight :blobcat_party: ))
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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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I’ll grant that it’s cool that “Borg cube” perovskite could be formed in a Brown Dwarf but I’m voting for reindeer blood tugtupite “King of Fluorescent Minerals,” which is tenebrescent (changes colour in UV) & phosphorescent so gains my physics vote plus it’s also a gem on the arts front #MinCup25
(Also: revenge for stibnite and calcite!)
Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3m02
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On rocks, from Mineral Cup’s admin, @mikamckinnon
She writes:
#Hematite is a key mineral in banded iron formations. And BIFs are my BFFsVery well done! BIFs make their appearance around minute five.
https://www.ted.com/talks/mika_mckinnon_do_you_have_a_rock
Thanks for the heads up
@vickyveritas
@vickyveritas.bsky.social#MinCup25 #BandedIronFormation #GreatOxidationEvent #Stromatolites #EarthHistory #EarthSystemScience
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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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Today, molybdenum is one of the most common trace elements in the ocean due to oxidative weathering of #Molybdenite. But in the Archean the oceans were reducing, and molybdenum was scarce.
Other nitrogenases evolved to use other transition elements, but Mo-nitrogenase was first, and best.
Molybdenite enables the Earth's biosphere!
#MinCup25 #NitrogenFixation #Nitrogenase #Archean #GreatOxidationEvent #OreCup #OreCup25
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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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The very rare fluorescent hydrocarbon mineral carparthite (exceptionally pure coronene C24H12) versus leucite, occasional gem used in fertilizer & dentistry (reinforcing ceramic crowns).
I’m going to give my vote to leucite for being useful and for arts because it’s occasionally a gem. #MinCup25
Vote here:
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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