One Of My Students Left Her Salt Water Out Over The 4 Day Weekend And These Beautiful Crystals Formed.

A Rainbow of Light Diffracts Through Hummingbird Wings in Photographs by Christian Spencer

Follower celebration: Make me choose between __and __

@x-kytanna-x asked: Thorin or Bilbo?

Glendonite star fossil

This fossil is not of an animal, but a mineral. When sea water temperature at the seafloor drops below ~4°C/39°F a carbonate mineral called ikaite will start to precipitate and grow forming bizarre shapes. Even though the original mineral will dissolve once it is buried, other diagenetic minerals will replace its form, making a glendonite.

Gledonite/Ikaite and its specific forming conditions allow geologist to approximate climatic conditions for the time period captured by the rocks in which this mineral is found.

Thanks to the flat exposure on the rock platform, we can appreciate this nature’s creativity.

Example from the south coast NSW, Australia.

what was the name of the fish my geology teacher called “bad dude” because i put bad dude in my notes and have no idea what the real name is

Autumn’s Majesty

Abundant fall colors on the road to Ophir in the San Juan Mountains near Telluride, Colorado.

rodrigo.paleontologist

Did you know many regular sidewalks can have body or trace fossils on them? Here I show you a sidewalk in southern Brazil (Dois Irmãos-RS) with marine invertebrate displacement trace fossils. These rocks are from the Late Carboniferous Rio do Sul Formation (Paraná Basin). Your strolls in town will never be the same now!

palaeoart

Finally made it to the legendary Stuttgart Museum of Natural History and it was worth the wait. Many people have described this as the single best paleontology Museum in the world and I can see why. There is so much to see, all beautifully preserved and presented. Over the next few days I’ll share my top picks from the museum but to whet your appetite, here’s an entire wall of giant Ichthyosaurs specimens from Holzmaden including Temnodontosaurus trigonodon and Eurhinosaurus longirostris.

Moss Agate looks like it has a forest inside. (Source)

yall we went to the most beautiful lake spring today. LOOK at this water 😭