#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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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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Repost: Kyanite isn't just a fetching blue mineral that documents the experience of sediments under extreme duress.
It's an ore: Virginia alone mined 83,000 tonnes in 2023. Kyanite in furnace insulation transforms to mullite when heated, expanding to reduce porosity and shrinkage.Virginia Kyanite (photo: J. Wyman) from:
https://energy.virginia.gov/geology/Kyanite.shtml -
Though kyanite is used in the arts, hematite is the most important pigment left standing, & vital to millennia of art history so easily wins the art vote. Red ochre, earth, Venetian red, mars red & English red. A stable, rich, vibrant red in cave paintings through contemporary paintings! #MinCup25
Vote for hematite here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r4m01
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This is one of the dykes found near Ayer's Cliff, just SE of Magog, Quebec. It's a set of three dykes, one of which has the deep-derived xenoliths. That one dyke (not photogenic) has weathered much faster, perhaps due to a higher carbonate content.
#kyanite #MinCup25 #Quebec #Xenolith #Grenville #Appalachians -
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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A photo of a Cretaceous dyke intruding into Appalachian-deformed sedimentary rocks deposited in the lower Paleozoic: Earth history from 110 to almost 500 million years ago.
But #kyanite records more of the story: it's part of xenoliths brought to the surface by these dykes that document Grenville crust (1.1 billion years old) at depth.
See: Trzcienski: Kyanite-garnet-bearing Cambrian rocks and Grenville granulites from the Ayer's Cliff, Quebec... Geology (1989)
#MinCup25 #Quebec #Appalachians -
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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Repost: Perovskite is found just west of Montreal in the Oka Complex; Carbonate-rich, silica-poor magma emplaced in the Cretaceous. The site was mined for niobium in the 1960's and 1970's -it's also enriched in REEs and thorium.
There’s more about perovsite at Oka on MinDat:
https://www.mindat.org/locentries.php?p=14009&m=3166
a non-profit mineral data base founded in 2000 by Jolyon Ralph.#MinCup25 #Perovskite #Oka #Carbonatite #Quebec #Canada #niobium
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Pretty blue Kyanite is used in porcelain(though more dishware/plumbing than art) but it is used in jewelry. Points for physics as an index mineral.
But topaz wins the art vote with centuries of gems, carving & jewelry. Plus on the physics front we have its use in lens & xray spectroscopy #MinCup25Vote for topaz here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1m13
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Thortveitite is the main ore of scandium.
Titanite is prized for its beauty, comes in different colours & is a source of titanium and hence titanium dioxide, used as a white pigment since ~1910. So, it gets my art vote.
Gets physics vote for trichroism- transparent specimens can show 3 colours depending on viewing angle. #MinCup25 #scicomm #artHist #pigment
Vote for titanite here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1m11
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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
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Quite a bit of #Chrysotile was extracted from the Jeffrey Mine, Quebec. It is located on a line of oceanic lithosphere attached to North America during the growth of the Appalachians.
The town of Asbestos, home of the mine, has been renamed 'Val-des-Sources'.
Much of the expense of renovating buildings in Quebec is the cost of removing the asbestos insulation.