What can be better than SPACE ROCK? Gimme a Space! Gimme a Rock! Gimme SPACE ROCK! de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_R... Vote #taenit #mincup25!

Froggy!

#MinCup25 yall should vote for #taenite so it can go against #kosmochlor in the quarter finals and we can decide which is the top meteorite mineral

It's time to unleash the kra‐-um, cats, yes, cats. Leia, Hugs, and Obsidian want everyone to know that taenite is from SPACE! Kyanite is useful, but it's not cooled slowly in outer space before crashing to Earth! Like my tiny pallasite, sometimes with olivine (the 1st MinCup champ)! #MinCup25

Kyanite is cool, but it's not "literally from the core of a small planet" cool, or "makes beautiful geometric patterns when polished and etched" cool, or "travelled through space as part of a meteoroid for a billion years or so" cool - so this one is an easy one for me: vote #taenite! #MinCup25

Dioptase is my enemy & #molybdenite amuses me with MoS2 Mohs <2. It reminds me of old dental fillings & makes me giggle about lubrication. Silver didn't make it through round 1, but this mimic should get the chance to push through another round. We've got plenty of green to go around in #MinCup25

Too true!

En el 6to juego de la 2da ronda de #MinCup25 se enfrentan la Dioptasa #Dioptase y la Molibdenita #Molybdenite por un lugar en 4tos de final. Mineral de gema contra mineral de aplicación. ¿Por cuál te inclinás? Votá: www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r2... Yo voté Molibdenita

#Molybdenite Dioptase looks nice, but don't touch! Molybdenite's grease is useful, and will live on in your heart, your shirt, the door, the cat and everything else! Vote Molybdenite today!

#Molybdenite accommodates transition elements, and its isotopes record age. Its transition element chemistry changed after the Great Oxidation Event. Molybdenite recorded the progressive influence of atmospheric O2 on crustal chemistry. #MinCup25

Molybdenite all the way! Who can resist what I like to think of as fool's silver? #MinCup25

Gonna fence sit for a bit this time, but I'm kind of a little obsessed with learning that, despite both mins having names with Greek roots, both "sphene" AND "Titan" may come from Greek substrate words, rather than PIE(though the latter may still be a loan word or PIE).

You know, I'm going to say it - Latin can be a lovely language, but every form of eo, ire is the most hideous form of eo, ire. eunt? imus? ierant? ierint? iens? euntis? Then you've got choices: iit (awful) or ivit (still bad)? do you want ierunt, iverunt or iere? All terrible. Just the worst.

As in Round 1: #Hematite makes Mars red! This vote is a no-brainer, especially for astronomers! #MinCup25

Perovskite had me at "found in the rain on brown dwarf stars..." That is the most arresting sentence I've read in days.

Perovskite fact of round 2: Perovskite type materials have long been studied for their usage in radiation shielding but today I learned other Perovskites are also being studied for radiation detection! Double win for the cubes! #MinCup25 #Perovskite

Working on the next piece of the "animals in the move" series for @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social #art #sciart #bats 🦇

What appears to be a single Borg-like #perovskite crystal is an intergrowth of repetitively “twinned” crystals that have formed striations and very complex faces. How? See comment. Photo from Mindat-link in ALT. Vote perovskite below #MinCup25 ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology 🔭🪐

Easy. #Perovskite all the way. Stibnite is the mineral equivalent of the person who says "this is more a comment than a question." #Perovskite would ask an insightful question that would generate interesting discussion.

I found a #perovskite bearing amphibole pyroxenite on Fuerteventura last year (just got back from vacation, and it's a chaos), and just for that reason I'm voting for the borg cubes.

#BREAKINGNEWS 🦇🌍 The world now has 1,500 recognized bat species! 🎉 The global list at www.batnames.org just hit this milestone. New bats are found through fieldwork in remote places & genetic discoveries. Amazing biodiversity news! #Bats #Biodiversity #BatsNeedFriends

You are perovskite The rain of starlight Love your dendritic And cubic way Like in the mantle You handle pressure Please do vote perovskite today #MinCup25 #MinLyrics

Perovskite LEDs, Perovskite solar cells, they look like Borg cubes...Perovskite is the future. I for one welcome our new calcium titanium oxide overlords. #MinCup25

This iridescent, dendritic (from the Greek word dendron, meaning tree) #perovskite likely formed from volcanic gases released from a volcanic vent, or fumarole. This crystal is from the Eifel Mountains, Germany. Perovskite can be beautiful! More on dendritic crystals in the comment. #MinCup25 ⚒️

A vote for #Perovskite is a vote for the future. Perovskites are particularly promising for space exploration, where high power-to-weight ratios and performance in low-light conditions are crucial for satellites and planetary missions. Imagine. See comment below for more. #MinCup25

Yes! Yay #perovskite

#TeamUmlaut !

Battle of the Blues! I like the blues, it’s a great genre of music. As a fan of Sodalite , I’m Team #hauyne

Round 2 of #MinCup25 already! I'm sticking with #hauyne, because while #Pectolite seems awesome, I love the fact that most hauyne is found by amateur collectors instead of mined.

Everich rose hath its þ

Saw dioptase in the desert Cuprosklodowskite in a beautiful green But I never saw the softest of the pretty Till I found the miniature riverboat queen Big wheel keep on spinning Paddlewheelite keep on winning And we're voting, voting, voting on a mineral And we're voting, voting, voting on a mineral

Behold: www.usatoday.com/story/entert...

Good colour. Nice name. #paddlewheelite #MinCup25

It's that time of year again! #MinCup25 is here (I'm a bit late to the party...) Paddlewheelite gets my vote today, of course, it's a uranyl mineral! ☢️ No competition!

#TeamGreen vote #paddlewheelite for #MinCup25

VOTE #PADDLEWHEELITE! Look at that COLOR! Also it's called PADDLEWHEELITE! Has there ever been a more awesome name? It's crystal structure looks like a paddle wheel! You can't ask for more than that! #TeamPaddlewheelite www.mindat.org/min-52712.html

Did I read that correctly? #Paddlewheelite was discovered in *a decommissioned mine that now operates as a spa?* Everyone pack your bags, we're going on a geology spa trip.

Yell at me all you want I voted for Paddlewheelite purely on the basis of the name.

Look at these baroque geometries! These rococo formation conditions! These Art Nouveau colors! I'm for #paddlewheelite All images sourced from www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/8/...

Here are four ways anyone can support and help their local library: • Get a library card ⭐️ • Use your library card 🌟 •Visit the library 💫 •Tell everyone to get a library card and support their local library ✨

#Ikaite is too unstable for my liking. Also, #cuprosklodowskite is named after _the_ most famous female scientist of the last 200 years. Did you know that of the minerals named after people, only 6% carry names of women? #MinCup25 news.umich.edu/whats-in-a-m...

I want to live in a cartoon world Where the detectives are keen What matters stands out from the background And what's radioactive is green I want science to win in the end Unmasking what couldn't be seen This world isn't always so nice, but this once: What's radioactive is green #MinCup25 #MinPoem

So #TIL that at least some topaz forms by vapour deposition in the gas bubbles/cavities of cooling rhyolite lava flows. 😮 Others form in pegmatites, for which my appreciation is already on record 🤩 Two ultra-cool formation mechanisms means #Topaz gets my vote. #MinCup25

Happy #Baturday! 🦇 The Long-eared Myotis (Myotis evotis) hunts moths along dark forest edges with “whispering” echolocation (stealth mode)! We’re monitoring them for white-nose syndrome & our diet study found that it eats crickets! Will it eat grasshoppers? #StayTuned #MoreDietResearch #AlbertaBats

topaz X kyanite in the #MinCup25 sketchbook kyanite is impressive but my love goes to topaz. #minerals #sciart #b&wart

Hoy en el juego 13 de #MinCup25 se enfrentan el Topacio #Topaz y la Cianita #Kyanite ambos minerales de colores clásicos anaranjado y azul tiene valor como piedras preciosas y otros usos por su dureza e inercia química Votá acá: www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r1... Yo voté Topacio.

#Topaz is root beer candy!!! Vote Topaz! 🥳😆

giant blue #topaz at @nhm.org #MinCup25

Fine, you had me at as big as a grizzly bear. But ask yourself this @amnh.org: How many stoats is a grizzly bear sized topaz crystal? (answer in replies) #StoatsasMeasurement #MinCup25 #TeamGrizzlyCrystal