I Miss Doing Microscope Work. Can We Make A Thread Of Our Favourite Thin Section? This Is Mine

This mysterious hole nearly swallowed a 6-year-old boy

On the south shore of Lake Michigan there are a series of large sand dunes that create the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore. The dunes are a consequence of winds blowing sand along the length of Lake Michigan and the lake level dropping over time and exposing the shorelines. The largest is known as Mount Baldy, a 40-meter high pile of sand that is not anchored by vegetation and migrates side to side every year depending on the winds.

In July 2013, a Northwestern Illinois family including 6-year-old Nathan Woessner was hiking along the dune on vacation. Suddenly, Nathan vanished and all that was left was this hole. Adults reached in and couldn’t feel the boy or reach his hands.

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The deep sea is radical. Two miles below the surface and not yet to the bottom, this Paraphyllina sp. jellyfish hovers in the vastness of inner-space. At home in the dark water world that covers most of the planet, the beautiful, bizarre beasties that the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) discovers in our backyard give us sunlit surface-dwellers a run for what it means to be an “Earthling.”

pls witness him

Happy Fossil Friday! Even though this animal looks like a big lizard, it is one of the early relatives of mammals: meet Edaphosaurus! It lived 280 million years ago, in the Permian Period. The key feature that tells us Edaphosaurus is related to mammals? The synapsid opening behind each eye socket. Photo: © AMNH

This radiant Sodalite mineral rock. Tenebrescence is the ability of minerals to change colour when exposed to light. 

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I miss doing microscope work. Can we make a thread of our favourite thin section? This is mine

Actinolite Schist

The beautiful Cathedral Cliffs rise above the forest: Shoshone National Forest, Wyoming

© riverwindphotography, July, 2019

I am a peddler of chubby cat pics

An arch in tilted columnar basalt

One of my students left her salt water out over the 4 day weekend and these beautiful crystals formed.