star diopside
This Larimar (pectolite) gemstone guide lists qualities of the Larimar (pectolite) gem type, including stone colors, common names, meanings, gemstone hardness and more.
Black Star Diopside (how they're supposed to look)
Dr Caroline Buttler (UK) It has long been recognised that art and archaeological collections in museums may need specialised conditions and conservation to survive. However, until relatively recently, geological collections have not had the same level of care. Perhaps, it was thought that rocks, minerals and fossils that had already survived millions of years do…
Dr Mark Wilkinson (UK) I sometimes ask a question to students in an introductory class about geology: “What is the most famous geological site in the world?” For students from the western hemisphere, the Grand Canyon in the USA is a popular choice. However, if you were to ask the same question to a group…
William Bagshaw (UK) White Scar Cave takes its name from the limestone outcrops or “scars” that overlook the entrance. This part of the Yorkshire Dales National Park is dominated by the ‘Three Peaks’ – Ingleborough, Pen-y-ghent and Whernside. Their distinctive shapes are due to their geological structure, which consists of nearly horizontal layers of grit…
Dr Trevor Watts (UK) This is the first of two articles on the volcanicity of the Giant’s Causeway and the surrounding area. The Causeway itself is an area of basalt columns, about 100m or so across, jutting into the Irish Sea. A remnant of a vast ancient lava flow, it is located in a coastal…
Dr Trevor Watts (UK) Lanzarote is the easternmost island of the Canaries, less than 100 miles (about 150km) off the coast of Morocco. It is part of Spain, but not officially in the European Union and Pico Partido is a sharp, prominent peak near the centre of the island, between the small town of Mancha…
Green jadeite jade, jade green, gemstone
Tom Cotterell (UK) Ask any mineral collector to name a classic mineral locality or region in Britain and they will probably think of Cornwall or Devon, perhaps Weardale in Co Durham, or even the Caldbeck Fells or the West Cumbrian iron mining district in Cumbria - but probably not Wales. This is not to say…
Benjamin Kear (Australia) and Georgios Georgalis (Greece) Most people are familiar with the famous giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands – isolated oddities evolving in the absence of predators on a remote tropical paradise. However, as little as 5mya, continental landmasses (including Europe, Africa and India) also had their own species of giants. However, these…
Rob Hope and Dr Davide Olivero (France) “ ... And yet we cannot hope to describe all of the natural happenings of our world; and thus impossible it seems to be to explain all of these unexplainable things ..." JL Alléon-Dulac, 1765, French naturalist (Opening Image). An ‘ammon horn’ sketch by Alleon-Dulac from 1765. Most probably…
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) It is unfortunate that the miscellaneous holes, pits and depressions produced in wood, rocks and skeletons (bones, shells and tests), both pre- and post-mortem, by a wide range of invertebrates, plants and fungi, are called borings. A less inspiring name for a fascinating suite of structures is hard to imagine.…
Adiël Klompmaker (USA) Who would like to carry a parasite? I bet not many people would like to have one or more. They are nevertheless very common in humans and in other organisms, and can affect entire food webs including keystone species. They tend to be small compared to the host and the vast majority…
Dr Neale Monks (UK) While arthropods and roundworms exceed the phylum Mollusca in terms of species, molluscs hold their own when it comes to anatomical diversity. There may be well over a million species of arthropod, but crabs, spiders and bees are all obviously related, sharing the same multi-limbed body plan organised around a jointed…
Tyler Keillor (USA) In the March 2010 issue of the open-access journal, PLoS Biology, palaeontologist Jeff Wilson and colleagues give an account of a truly unique and amazing fossil discovery. In their article entitled Predation upon Hatchling Dinosaurs by a New Snake from the Late Cretaceous of India, the snake Sanajeh indicus is described, based…
Nigel Larkin and Steven Dey (UK) Inspired by the excellent series of articles by Trevor Watts discussing the types of Mid-Jurassic dinosaur footprints to be found along the Whitby coast (see The dinosaur footprints of Whitby: Part 1, for Part 1 - links to the other parts can be found at the end of that…
Richard Edmonds (UK) Between Seatown and Eype, on the West Dorset coast (part of the Dorset and East Devon Coast World Heritage Site), there is a remarkable layer of rock known as the Eype Starfish Bed. This is famous for exquisitely brittle starfish (brittlestars) fossils that are usually preserved on the soft, sandy underside of…
Dan Quinsey (UK) Some fossils show evidence of the violent relationships between predator and prey. Below is a brief discussion of a few of such fossils - fossils that seem to preserve the moment when a carnivore has killed its victim or scavenged a dead body for food. Fig. 1. Placenticeras sp ammonite with limpet…
Stephen K Donovan (The Netherlands) In a country with a limited resource of pre-Quaternary geology in outcrop, the Netherlands nevertheless has a wealth of rock types in building stones (Donovan, 2015a; Donovan and Madern, in press), street furniture (Donovan, 2015b) and artificial ‘outcrops’ (Donovan, 2014). Perhaps the commonest rock type seen in Dutch cities is…
