#organisedatoms — Public Fediverse posts

I think the best one so far, starting to get somewhere with this perhaps...

The natural semiconductors used in this track are pieces from the same lump of solid chalcopyrite fossicked from minewaste at East Wheal Maid, Gwennap. Three shafts on a hilltop that overlook the "Wheal Maid Valley", site of the Great Consolidated Mines. The rubble falling down from the steep sides are full of mineralisation typical of these mines, pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite and galena - but also a lot of dark siderite. The names of the shafts and the lodes here have been forgotten to history.

New electronics have been built to provide enveloped gates to free up the ones I've been using on the volca modulars meaning the synth can be used more simply, or even standalone now - preparation for the #OrganisedAtoms workshop so we could test minerals we collected with family groups, to provide sonification of different crystals (this took over completely from the cardboard synths we used previously).

https://soundcloud.com/cornish_semiconductor/from-a-forgotten-lode

https://archive.org/details/cornish-semiconductor-forgotten-lode

#synthdiy #mining #minerals

Managed to replicate the pyrite noise generator on the cardboard synth - single transistor operation for high quality analogue crackles! This one will be in the workshop guide... #OrganisedAtoms

Wondering what on earth was up with this, and then I remembered how much it rained on the last workshop #OrganisedAtoms

Having some success using natural semiconductors (chalcocite from Penstruthal mine) with "industry standard" synthesis #OrganisedAtoms

Sometimes crystals form stacked 'worm' like shapes - this is pale green clinochlore on a dark sphalerite matrix from Wheal Charles, Porthtowan at the base of the steep valley underneath the much larger Tywarnhayle mine.

I got wet feet from a failed attempt at jumping over a stream for this one, but it was worth it.

#OrganisedAtoms

'Exporting' a few chips of rock internationally enforces capitalist values on matter that couldn't care less in awkward ways.

DE customs want invoices to prove what I've picked up from #MineWaste is worth (for a gift) so they can tax it.

The fact it's arsenopyrite is probably not an issue but - "Arsenic is a critical mineral and used in numerous industrial products including gallium-arsenic semiconductors for use in cell phones, solar panels, telecommunications, aerospace research and light emitting diodes (LEDs)"

#OrganisedAtoms

'Exporting' a few chips of rock internationally enforces capitalist values on matter that couldn't care less in awkward ways.

DE customs want invoices to prove what I've picked up from #MineWaste is worth (for a gift) so they can tax it.

The fact it's arsenopyrite is probably not an issue but - "Arsenic is a critical mineral and used in numerous industrial products including gallium-arsenic semiconductors for use in cell phones, solar panels, telecommunications, aerospace research and light emitting diodes (LEDs)"

#OrganisedAtoms

'Exporting' a few chips of rock internationally enforces capitalist values on matter that couldn't care less in awkward ways.

DE customs want invoices to prove what I've picked up from #MineWaste is worth (for a gift) so they can tax it.

The fact it's arsenopyrite is probably not an issue but - "Arsenic is a critical mineral and used in numerous industrial products including gallium-arsenic semiconductors for use in cell phones, solar panels, telecommunications, aerospace research and light emitting diodes (LEDs)"

#OrganisedAtoms

'Exporting' a few chips of rock internationally enforces capitalist values on matter that couldn't care less in awkward ways.

DE customs want invoices to prove what I've picked up from #MineWaste is worth (for a gift) so they can tax it.

The fact it's arsenopyrite is probably not an issue but - "Arsenic is a critical mineral and used in numerous industrial products including gallium-arsenic semiconductors for use in cell phones, solar panels, telecommunications, aerospace research and light emitting diodes (LEDs)"

#OrganisedAtoms

'Exporting' a few chips of rock internationally enforces capitalist values on matter that couldn't care less in awkward ways.

DE customs want invoices to prove what I've picked up from #MineWaste is worth (for a gift) so they can tax it.

The fact it's arsenopyrite is probably not an issue but - "Arsenic is a critical mineral and used in numerous industrial products including gallium-arsenic semiconductors for use in cell phones, solar panels, telecommunications, aerospace research and light emitting diodes (LEDs)"

#OrganisedAtoms

And a new photo of one of my favorite finds - #Wolframite group mineral (tungsten oxide) from Wheal Fortune, Gwennap, #Cornwall. A 5.5mm 'monster' with complex striations and etched faces.

I found this one in a large quartz rock lying on the surface with lots of wolframite in, this was the only one that I found that wasn't entirely embedded in the quartz, but I wish I'd kept more of it.

mindat.org minID: PNC-TQL

#OrganisedAtoms

Not one of mine, but a photo I made of a friend's specimen - amazing spherical #Hematite ("kidney ore") inclusions in water clear quartz. Some of the metallic spheres are split, so you can see how they grew from a tiny dark red core. Found in #MineWaste at Botallack mine, #Cornwall.

mindat.org minID: H3M-LEY

#OrganisedAtoms

Not one of mine, but a photo I made of a friend's specimen - amazing spherical #Hematite ("kidney ore") inclusions in water clear quartz. Some of the metallic spheres are split, so you can see how they grew from a tiny dark red core. Found in #MineWaste at Botallack mine, #Cornwall.

mindat.org minID: H3M-LEY

#OrganisedAtoms

Not one of mine, but a photo I made of a friend's specimen - amazing spherical #Hematite ("kidney ore") inclusions in water clear quartz. Some of the metallic spheres are split, so you can see how they grew from a tiny dark red core. Found in #MineWaste at Botallack mine, #Cornwall.

mindat.org minID: H3M-LEY

#OrganisedAtoms

Not one of mine, but a photo I made of a friend's specimen - amazing spherical #Hematite ("kidney ore") inclusions in water clear quartz. Some of the metallic spheres are split, so you can see how they grew from a tiny dark red core. Found in #MineWaste at Botallack mine, #Cornwall.

mindat.org minID: H3M-LEY

#OrganisedAtoms

Not one of mine, but a photo I made of a friend's specimen - amazing spherical #Hematite ("kidney ore") inclusions in water clear quartz. Some of the metallic spheres are split, so you can see how they grew from a tiny dark red core. Found in #MineWaste at Botallack mine, #Cornwall.

mindat.org minID: H3M-LEY

#OrganisedAtoms

Recently I've been making better images of specimens I found previously - this is a pair of complex #Cuprite crystals from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity, Gwennap I found in a 20 minute visit in 2023 checking sites for #OrganisedAtoms workshops (I should check it out again, found some amazing things here and somehow never returned). They have a thin coating of #Chrysocolla which gives them a hint of blue.

I'm still using the same cheap USB microscope, but I learned how to use Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/) better to make large resolution images. This is a composite image of 9 focus stacked images - each comprised of 10 to 20 images at different focal depths.

Recently I've been making better images of specimens I found previously - this is a pair of complex #Cuprite crystals from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity, Gwennap I found in a 20 minute visit in 2023 checking sites for #OrganisedAtoms workshops (I should check it out again, found some amazing things here and somehow never returned). They have a thin coating of #Chrysocolla which gives them a hint of blue.

I'm still using the same cheap USB microscope, but I learned how to use Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/) better to make large resolution images. This is a composite image of 9 focus stacked images - each comprised of 10 to 20 images at different focal depths.

Recently I've been making better images of specimens I found previously - this is a pair of complex #Cuprite crystals from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity, Gwennap I found in a 20 minute visit in 2023 checking sites for #OrganisedAtoms workshops (I should check it out again, found some amazing things here and somehow never returned). They have a thin coating of #Chrysocolla which gives them a hint of blue.

I'm still using the same cheap USB microscope, but I learned how to use Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/) better to make large resolution images. This is a composite image of 9 focus stacked images - each comprised of 10 to 20 images at different focal depths.

Recently I've been making better images of specimens I found previously - this is a pair of complex #Cuprite crystals from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity, Gwennap I found in a 20 minute visit in 2023 checking sites for #OrganisedAtoms workshops (I should check it out again, found some amazing things here and somehow never returned). They have a thin coating of #Chrysocolla which gives them a hint of blue.

I'm still using the same cheap USB microscope, but I learned how to use Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/) better to make large resolution images. This is a composite image of 9 focus stacked images - each comprised of 10 to 20 images at different focal depths.

Recently I've been making better images of specimens I found previously - this is a pair of complex #Cuprite crystals from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity, Gwennap I found in a 20 minute visit in 2023 checking sites for #OrganisedAtoms workshops (I should check it out again, found some amazing things here and somehow never returned). They have a thin coating of #Chrysocolla which gives them a hint of blue.

I'm still using the same cheap USB microscope, but I learned how to use Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/) better to make large resolution images. This is a composite image of 9 focus stacked images - each comprised of 10 to 20 images at different focal depths.

Hundreds of tiny hexagonal prisms of #Mimetite (looking a bit like insect eggs). A secondary mineral that forms with exposure of galena to sea water.

Given the time span involved, these would have formed long before it was mined and fell onto the beach, so it presumably originally comes from where they followed the galena ore vein underneath the sea.

This small mine was abandoned in 1858 due to sea water entering from a crosscut which intersected the workings.

#OrganisedAtoms

In another part of the same rock the #Cerussite has formed fragile, clear elongated forms.

I managed to take this focus stacked image before accidentally crushing it with my thumb.

We've been walking the dogs here for years, casually searching & only finding the odd old crusty pyrite - so this was a nice surprise.

#OrganisedAtoms

Squarish, tabular #Cerussite scattered across an orange matrix, surrounded by exposed #Galena with typical right angled breakage planes.

#Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Clinton, Flushing, #Cornwall. Found below the high tide level, beneath the main shaft of an old lead/silver mine (now in a rich person's enormous garden overlooking the sea).

Some of the galena is tarnished blue indicating it has a high silver content (~3% according to historical records).

#OrganisedAtoms

Squarish, tabular #Cerussite scattered across an orange matrix, surrounded by exposed #Galena with typical right angled breakage planes.

#Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Clinton, Flushing, #Cornwall. Found below the high tide level, beneath the main shaft of an old lead/silver mine (now in a rich person's enormous garden overlooking the sea).

Some of the galena is tarnished blue indicating it has a high silver content (~3% according to historical records).

#OrganisedAtoms

Squarish, tabular #Cerussite scattered across an orange matrix, surrounded by exposed #Galena with typical right angled breakage planes.

#Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Clinton, Flushing, #Cornwall. Found below the high tide level, beneath the main shaft of an old lead/silver mine (now in a rich person's enormous garden overlooking the sea).

Some of the galena is tarnished blue indicating it has a high silver content (~3% according to historical records).

#OrganisedAtoms

Squarish, tabular #Cerussite scattered across an orange matrix, surrounded by exposed #Galena with typical right angled breakage planes.

#Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Clinton, Flushing, #Cornwall. Found below the high tide level, beneath the main shaft of an old lead/silver mine (now in a rich person's enormous garden overlooking the sea).

Some of the galena is tarnished blue indicating it has a high silver content (~3% according to historical records).

#OrganisedAtoms

Squarish, tabular #Cerussite scattered across an orange matrix, surrounded by exposed #Galena with typical right angled breakage planes.

#Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Clinton, Flushing, #Cornwall. Found below the high tide level, beneath the main shaft of an old lead/silver mine (now in a rich person's enormous garden overlooking the sea).

Some of the galena is tarnished blue indicating it has a high silver content (~3% according to historical records).

#OrganisedAtoms

A close up of a germanium diode - last month China banned export of this critical mineral ahead of a coming trade war with the US.

This factory made component is constructed in the same way as our #OrganisedAtoms semiconductors - a blob of solder holds the germanium crystal being tickled by it's 'cat's whisker' point contact.

This germanium material is most likely to have been extracted from impurities in sphalerite from one of China's giant zinc mines in the Sichuan-Yunnan-Guizhou Triangle area.

Bindheimite is not the commonest mineral, nor usually that interesting to look at, but I love this photo! It's formed yellow-orange-red blobs on a dark blue iridescent unknown material.

Bindheimite is comprised of lead and antimony, it's the result of alteration from minerals like galena, bournonite and tetrahedrite.

The 'fibres' visible here look like it could have originally been an acicular mineral (thin stick like crystals) which could be jamesonite, but I don't have the skills or lab equipment to tell for sure.

#OrganisedAtoms

First build of the cardboard crystal synth version 2. Still figuring out component values needed, but much neater innards this time! These are given to families to take home, so we need to build a lot. #OrganisedAtoms

Tiny magnetite crystals - commonly known as "lodestones", stuck to one another.

These were extracted from a couple of tablespoons of stream sediment from Basset and Grylls tin mine, Wendron, #Cornwall

I'm not 100% certain I didn't magnetise these with the neodymium magnet I used to isolate them, but they are usually naturally magnetised and can be used to make compasses.

#OrganisedAtoms

It's blue and green season at #OrganisedAtoms microscopic mining corp.

Crysocolla and malachite samples #Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity and Penstruthal Mine, #Cornwall

It's blue and green season at #OrganisedAtoms microscopic mining corp.

Crysocolla and malachite samples #Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity and Penstruthal Mine, #Cornwall

It's blue and green season at #OrganisedAtoms microscopic mining corp.

Crysocolla and malachite samples #Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity and Penstruthal Mine, #Cornwall

It's blue and green season at #OrganisedAtoms microscopic mining corp.

Crysocolla and malachite samples #Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity and Penstruthal Mine, #Cornwall

It's blue and green season at #OrganisedAtoms microscopic mining corp.

Crysocolla and malachite samples #Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity and Penstruthal Mine, #Cornwall

Turns out giving a bunch of kids big hammers and giant piles of rock, they are very contented indeed (assuming if you have the ubiquitous health and safety forms, eye protection, gloves and the correct kind of parents) #OrganisedAtoms

Prototype #OrganisedAtoms synth for experimenting with different semiconducting #MineWaste crystals in our upcoming workshop for Flamm Cornwall in Redruth.

One transistor radio, now with pyrite detector diode (#Fossicked from #MineWaste at Unity Wood mine, #Cornwall). The pyrite seems to work just as well as the standard germanium one, it doesn't take long to find a working junction on the crystal surface. #OrganisedAtoms

Single transistor AM receiver #OrganisedAtoms

AM transmitter, quite cheap, nasty and against the law. Range only about 5m though so no sweat. #OrganisedAtoms

Springtime at Then Try This (sincerest apologies) #OrganisedAtoms