Is anyone else going to this? I'll be giving a talk about how to preserve #minerals in museum collections #MinSoc150

#minsoc150 #minerals #museums 23/06/26 keynote 1: The Importance and the future of collections: Reviewing the critical relationship between national museums and subject specialist societies by Mike Rumsey of the NHM @nhm-london.bsky.social

34: Critical Raw Materials opens today! This temporary exhibition is free! At a time of rising geopolitical tensions and growing competition over the resources needed for clean energy, modern technology and defence, there has never been a more timely moment to shine a spotlight on them.

The answer to this Guess the Gem is analcime!! This one is from Mont Saint-Hilaire, where massive crystals have been found. #GuessTheGem #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪💎

Behold, the sea potato. This is a polymetallic nodule that forms in sediments in the deep sea, usually 3000-6000 metres down. These nodules contain different types of metals, but often manganese is extracted from them. Learn more at our new exhibition 34: Critical Raw Materials opens this week.

It is officially Week 3! Come learn about ancient fossil trees 🌴 or about Edinburgh’s volcanic past 🌋 , meet rock enthusiasts, and even ride a rib boat to Siccar Point this week in the Scottish Geology Festival! #ScotGeolFest26 #ScottishGeology

Grape chalcedony, made up of quartz and moganite, from Indonesia. Another one that looks like candy, but no eating!! #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Pegmatite is a type of igneus rock that frequently contains large crystals of quartz, feldspar, or mica. When looked at with a longwave UV flashlight, these minerals seem to glow! Kids at our museum can see this for themselves up close and personal.

We are moving into Week 2 of the Scottish Geology Festival! Get creative in art workshops 🎨 or enjoy the outdoors in guided walks and excursions. ⛰️ #ScotGeolFest26 #ScottishGeology

Look at the colours in these opal nodules!! These are in rhyolite, a type of volcanic rock. #MineralMonday (well Mineraloid Monday) #VolcanoMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪🌋

For your geo-bracket cravings:

Are you already waiting for September, for #MinCup26 and the 10th anniverary of #MinCup? To shorten your waiting time, have a look at this article on the history of MinCup 😍👇

Zircon crystals are nearly indestructible, and are some of the only things to survive the hellish pressure and heat of the Haldean Eon, when the earth was formed. The oldest zircons are found in Jack Hills, Australia, where our specimen was found. It may be small, but it's 4.4 billion years old!

Brightly coloured minerals are a lot of fun!! This botryoidal smithsonite looks like some sort of rounded candy. But don’t eat it!! #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Cumbria, England has some beautiful calcites! 😍 (Vid description: My left hand in a blue nitrile glove slowly rotating a cluster of transparent calcite crystals with some red iron staining on grey hematite) #MineralMonday #minerals

I’ll share another bright mineral for Mineral Monday: check out this pyromorphite!! It’s from Daoping, China. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

📚️ 📝 🍎 The Victorian Schoolroom (History of Education Centre) in Newhaven, Edinburgh is delighted to offer some lively events to celebrate the 300th Anniversary of the birth of James Hutton, the renowned, Edinburgh-born “Father of Geology”.

Come along for a guided walk along the Fife Coastal Path 🌊

Guess the Gem!! What mineral do you think all these gems are? Hint: some colour varieties fade in exposure to light. #GuessTheGem #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪💎

Walk back in time in Fossil Grove, a unique collection of fossil trees formed 330 million years ago. 🌴 This open day includes the grove itself, access to the surrounding quarry, plus fun activities and displays! 🎟️ Free event, no booking required. #ScotGeolFest26 #ScottishGeology

Learn about caves and how they are studied in this online talk by Dr Tim Lawson 💻️ 📈 🎟️ Free online talk, booking required. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1989142173... For more information visit: www.scottishgeologytrust.org/event/online...

I made this back in 2017 on Twitter and it's been stolen so many times so I better post it here too before someone else does! 🧪⚒️ #geology #minerals #volcanology

Sand from Black Sands Beach in Marin Headlands is .... not black. ⚒️

The answer to this Guess the Gem is vesuvianite!! This mineral was named after the volcano Mount Vesuvius, whose eruption destroyed Pompeii. #GuessTheGem #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪💎

Earth Matters is an exhibition of art, craft and design inspired by Hutton and subsequent trailblazers who have helped challenge and change our understanding of soil 🌱 See emotive and innovative pieces for free at Inverlieth House, RGBE, open every day until 1st November. 📅

May the forsterite be with you #MineralMonday #minerals (Image thumbnail: bright green forsterite crystals on a black lumpy matrix) www.mindat.org/photo-669327...

An anticline in Shady Dolomite for today's #FridayFold, exposed along the New River Trail in Wythe County, Virginia. ⚒️

Although critical raw materials seem to appear in the news every day, few people truly understand how they are sourced, what they are used for, the impact they have on our society and environment, and how vital they are to the transition toward green technology.

Quite the vibrant ruby!! Ruby is a variety of the mineral species corundum. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Now this is a cool mineral I've never heard of before. Tubulite is named for its weird morphology (Image thumbnail shows two crystals of tubulite which look like very shiny metal tubes, on boulangerite wires. The tubes are about 0.4mm long) #minerals #MineralMonday www.mindat.org/photo-120162...

Back in the lab, I'm checking out some of the sediment I collected last week in Baja. This is sand from San Marcos Island. ⚒️

A stunning melding of palaeontology and mineralogy (well mineraloid-ology) in this opalized plesiosaur vertebra. Isn’t it gorgeous? #FossilFriday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

A #FridayFold in Franciscan mélange on Perle's Beach, Angel Island, CA. ⚒️

Channel filled with welded tuff, incised into volcaniclastic debris flow deposits, central Baja. ⚒️

This is your brain on #minerals A specimen of geyserite (a type of siliceous rock that forms around hot springs and geysers) from Fire Hole River, Yellowstone, USA

A bow tie!! This is a classic form of the zeolite mineral stilbite. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Happy #FoldFriday and have a nice weekend! ⚒️🧪 Photo from Kirkeporten, Norway. #photography

Halite casts in Tonoloway dolostone. ⚒️

For this holiday Mineral Monday, I present an itty bitty egg shaped from fluorite. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

🎶...Just another mylonitic Monday...🎶 ⚒️

I just saw that it’s Geologists Day today!!! To share my excitement about geology, here is one of my favourite types of rock: obsidian!! This is a thin polished slice showing flow banding. #GeologistsDay #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Happy International Geologist's Day! Now for real. Below are the Easter-most igneous rocks out there. The orbicular granite slabs near the Department of the Earth Sciences in Uppsala University. 🧪 ⚒️ #Geology

Happy Geologists’ Day!!! Geology is for everyone, especially those who love cool rocks and minerals like this quartz!!! #GeoscienceBluesky #GeologistsDay

Brecciated Catoctin Formation in thin section ⚒️

The answer is the tourmaline group!! There are numerous mineral species in this group and a variety of colours! #GuessTheGem #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪💎

Happy April Fool's Gold Day! #minerals #GeologistProblems

So that's #365Minerals over and done with. It's been eight(!) years since I did the first #365Minerals over on Twitter - it was inspired by #365Papers. I'm glad that this time around I could use my own photos of specimens on display in the NHM! Thanks for following! 🧪⚒️💎

So not quite a mineral for this week’s Mineral Monday, but this mineraloid opal is such a stunner. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Have you ever seen mica in the shape of a star? Muscovite is more commonly seen as books of near hexagonal layers. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

Nature said flowers… geology said forever. Spring is in full formation at the Museum. Can you see the flowers in these rocks? #springbreak #Mineralmonday #dmms