correction from earlier post (about semi final 2 still!), it's native copper vs molybdenite in the final! easier one for me, much as I love copper minerals I'll go with the soft sulfide!

quick game's a good game and it's already the Ore Cup final! very hard one to pick for me! both beautiful and important sulfide minerals 🥰🥰

correct prediction! we'll see if molybdenite can make it to the final!

We’re on team #molybdenite in today’s #OreCup match-up. It’s the main ore of molybdenum, a critical resource with many uses, including in building renewable energy technologies. eos.org/features/cri...

Molybdenite—love those hex shapes, and love this particular speciman’s mix of symmetry and asymmetry. www.mindat.org/photo-298205...

We didn’t always recognize #Molybdenite or know how to use Mo until the late 19th Century. Rh wasn’t discovered until 1908. After early experiments during WWI, automobile and aviation industries found uses for both elements in high-performance alloys. Then catalysts and medical uses. #OreCup25 ⚒️ 🧪

Copper has my heart.

Congratulations to #Copper on a winning by a decisive 27% margin. Whatever happens in the Finals, you won’t be going home with bronze. Condolences, #Ilmenite, but we’re confident you’ll weather this setback with your usual resilience.

#OreCup R2M2: It's slippery and silvery #Molybdenite vs peacock rock #Bornite! Are you supporting the only molybdenum (and rhenium) ore, or the hefty copper sulphide? vote: www.mineralcup.org/vote-results... results: www.mineralcup.org/vote-results...

Based on the spelling of Carroll, more like: How doth the little mineral Improve its shining face, And hide the cobalt underground, An inconvenient place!

#OreCup tis the season! anyone want to write a ... Carroll? O Cobalt Ye Faithful 😅

Carrollite, Japon youtu.be/a_z5HVAkAWk #carrollite #sulfur #quartz #unique #cristaux #cristal #crystals #mineralogie #mineraux #minerai #gemmes #gems #collection #naturae #lapides #minerals #nature #merveille #cristallisation #collector www.youtube.com/@naturaelapi...

I have to endorse #Carrollite today—copper PLUS cobalt! 1st I love cobalt blue 2nd cobalt comes from kobold, the German name for an imp or demon, so named bc it made recovery of silver (from ores where they mixed) more difficult to recover. (Yes that’s where D&D got it.) #OreCup

#carrollite pretty 😍 #OreCup #OreCup25 www.mindat.org/gm/911

Nice article on the type locality of #carrollite : Carroll County, Maryland and the Patapsco Mine. https://jamesrada.com/carrollite-the-mineral-once-found-only-in-carroll-county/ #orecup #orecup25 #mincup25 #maryland #sykesville #cobalt

#Carrollite from Congo at the Tucson show #OreCup #MineralMonday

Octahedral crystals, polysynthetic twinning striations, super conductivity, and iridescent sheen? Yes, please. #carrollite #MinCup25 ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology 🔭🪐

was planning on voting for bornite until reading that natural specimens of carrollite exhibit superconductivity 😎

I’m voting for the only Co ore in the Ore Cup, the superconductor mineral #Carrollite. Co serves many industrial, medical, and artistic applications, from battery and magnet technology, to radiotherapy, to glass and ceramic glaze coloring agent. #OreCup25 ⚒️ 🧪

voting carrollite for the cobalt content, but this will be a tough one to win facing off against bornite!

the jadarite deposit is a flashpoint for critical mineral economics and environmental geology. the reality is that if lithium isn't mined in one place, it will be sourced elsewhere with no guarantee of improved protections in a different part of the world - always a complicated issue!

Want to know more about jadarite? Read our #AllMineralsConsidered piece: rdcu.be/eOojc

Lithium beats Alzheimer’s (which I knew but forgot…)!! Vote #Jadarite in today’s #OreCup match!

A short press release from June about #Jadarite. I think it has my vote. I'm not normally a fan of complicated recipes, but with only one known source? Awww. It might be lonely. www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office...

jadarite needs some votes! it has all the elements mentioned in the formula of kryptonite, but couldn't be called that as krypton itself is an unreactive gas!

#OreCup R1M3: It’s a battle of black and white as titanium ore #Ilmenite is pitted against lithium and boron ore #Jadarite. vote: www.mineralcup.org/vote-results... results:

My #scicomm win for the day? Writing a mostly-coherent definition of mineral subgroups without lies of oversimplification or ending up deep in the weeds. I hope.

I am called out. But in my defence, the adjectives for describing the texture of a mineral so slippery that it’s one of the best lubricants on the planet veer into nsfw or at least giggle-inducing territory very quickly.

a reason to vote for galena in #OreCup!

For once I have both mins in my collection! (Ignore the fur-covered cat tree.) 1/3 of my cats posed for photos. They all received treats after the grueling sitting next to a mineral. Copper-hued Hugs is MVP, Obsidian sort of posed, and Leia did her own thing. #OreCup #MinCup #Copper

The only ones i have and they're up against each other in the first round of course

Ore Cup first match up!

The ore minerals... are: Bornite, a copper iron sulphide ore Carrollite, a cobalt ore Copper, a copper ore (and native element) Galena, a lead ore Ilmenite, a titanium oxide ore Jadarite, a lithium and boron ore Molybdenite, molybdenum ore Tetrahedrite, a subgroup of copper sulfide ores

13 days until the first-ever ORE CUP! You ready? (We’re not, but we will be!) #OreCup

Why hello, minerals from Cups past! It’s always fun to see our contenders (and some Champions) at an affordable price tag in local rock shops.

Hark! What’s that we see on the horizon? Is it something new? Something mostly metallic, quite heavy, and essential to society? It’s an all-new collaboration with IMA! Ore Cup: www.mineralcup.org/about-ore-cup Voting starts Monday November 3. Winner crowned IMA Ore Mineral of the Year

We have a #MinCup25 champion!! Congratulations, #Kyanite! www.mineralcup.org/2025 After eight years of competing, another few hours to verify votes was nothing, right? Amazing first run, #Tugtupite, and better luck next year.

Green vs green! Cuprosklodowskite for me, for its extra dose of vibrancy and interesting geochemistry! www.mindat.org/photo-419767...

pug-putite ftw

"pink" is the little sister of... I don't know. To use "pink" as descriptive for #tugtupite is an insult. Reindeer-bloodish is the least but I would just describe it as the most marvellous color on the R/M side of the RGB/CYM color scales. Vote #tugtupite #mincup25

Beryllium!! m.youtube.com/watch?v=GGfk...

Tugtupite is so pretty when it’s polished too. Looks like preserved cherry blossoms 🌸

Perovskite is amazing I’ll grant you but I can’t get over the bright blood of tugtupite charged up by the summer sun but hiding in the deep Greenland winter. #TeamTugtupite

Since #hematite won its quarterfinal, if we can also get #tugtupite through we have the potential of a blood rock final match.

I'm voting for tugtupite because I had a dream about it last night 😂 I found massive chunks of tugtupite, and cancrinite and sodalite too, at the base of a cliff #MinCup25 #minerals

Tugtupite! Name from the Inuit "tuttu" meaning "reindeer blood!" Alluding to its color and "it was created when Tutu the reindeer girl gave birth to her first child, symbolizing the life-giving essence and the profound love of a mother for her child." #MinCup25

As in Rounds 1&2, it’s #Tugtupite for me! It’s got an Indigenous name & as @redsage.bsky.social said it is: tenebrescent, fluorescent in short & long wave UV & phosphorescent—from Greenland, it would go dim & mild during the long winters and then bright and intense during summer(!) #MinCup25

I just realized that if hematite and tugtupite make it to the finals, we can have blood rock vs blood rock for the final match!

Voting for tugtupite today! too many perovskite votes aren't for the mineral but for the eponymous group of structures. Tugtupite is also a beryllium containing mineral, and I do love a mineralogical oddity!

still a tight margin! vote for haematite for beautiful russet reds!