Day 22 : The bright yellow mineral is native sulphur from volcanic fumaroles in the High Andes of Chile. This was being quarried by hand and loaded into trucks by wheelbarrow. Candidate for one of the worst jobs in the world. Get this stuff on your clothes and your sweat turns it …
Day 21 : This image shows the characteristic silver-grey colour and cubic habit of galena (lead sulphide). It is associated with drusy quartz crystals partially infilling the voids between the large galena crystals. Unfortunately, I have forgotten where I picked this sample up from.
Day 20 : Today I was visiting the geology department in Birmingham University and had the chance of snapping this chap with my iPhone camera (hence the poor quality of the image) in the Lapworth Museum. This is Eryops megacephalus (or big head with a drawn out face). This Lower …
Day 19 : Concluding the glacial erratic meme with a proper erratic boulder. This is mounted on a plinth outside the earth sciences and geography building at Keele where I work. Although much in need of a clean, this granite boulder shows the faceted characteristics of ice transport. The granite …
Day 18 : Continuing the glacial erratic from the back garden meme from the last two days, this is the most common of the erratic clasts that I find, conglomerate pebbles. These pebbles are rounded, unlike the granite and limestone clasts, but their rounding comes from fluvial transport in the …
Day 17 : Continuing the glacial erratics in the back garden theme from yesterday, this is a limestone erratic block. As with yesterday, the block is quite angular with faceted sides indicating ice, rather than watertransport. Although there is a small outcrop of Carboniferous Limestone only 15 km away to …
Day 16 : Not only from the back garden collection but today's rock is literally from the back garden. Sometimes geology comes to you rather than you having to visit it. I live in the English Midlands, at least 100km from the nearest granite, and they don't look anything like …
Day 15 : A piece of "moon rock". Selenite literally means 'Of the Moon' and named after Selene, the Greek goddess of the Moon (the Roman equivalent of whom is Luna). This shouldn't be confused with the 'gem' moonstone which is feldspar. Selenite is a variety of gypsum (calcium sulphate). …
Day14 : One mineral in the shape of another. Here we have a cubic mineral form with a metallic lustre. The clue here is in the foreground where a thin coating of specular haematite has been broken off from an underlying yellow fluorspar crystal. This sample is from the same …
Day 13 : Vesicular basalt from Iceland. I really like the surface textures and being full of small bubble holes it is very light. I spent a fortnight driving around Iceland’s “ring road” so to be honest I can’t quite remember exactly where the sample originates, but is probably from …