Posted on 06/11/2021 11:51:04 AM PDT by Red Badger
At 563 carats, the Star of India is the world’s largest gem-quality blue star sapphire, and is approximately 2 billion years old. (Image credit: D. Finnin/Copyright AMNH)
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What does the legendary Star of India — a 563-carat star sapphire the size of a golf ball — have in common with a 35-million-year-old petrified redwood slab; a massive cluster of sword-like crystals that looks like it came from "Game of Thrones;" and a 5-ton (4.5-metric ton) stone pillar that can "sing?"
You can see all of them, along with 5,000 other amazing stones, in the newly renovated Mignone Hall of Gems and Minerals at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York City, which is reopening after a four-year closure on Saturday (June 12). There, one-of-a-kind precious gems appear alongside odd-looking rocks — some of which date to billions of years ago — that have been uniquely warped and twisted by extreme temperatures and pressures.
Individually and together, these objects tell a story of the diverse geologic processes that shape minerals on Earth's surface and deep inside our planet, beginning when the world was young and continuing to this day, museum representatives told Live Science.
Related: 13 mysterious and cursed gemstones
The Star of India, which formed about a billion years ago, was discovered in Sri Lanka in the 18th century. It is one of the best-known gems in the world, in part because it was famously and brazenly stolen from AMNH in 1964, along with several more of the museum's prized stones, by a pair of thieves named Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy and Allan Kuhn, Smithsonian reported in 2014, on the heist's 50th anniversary. (The one-of-a-kind sapphire was recovered and went back on display in 1965).
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
My son’s dad and his brother enlisted in the navy together. Their birthdays were ten months and two days apart. But, since the Sullivans, in WWII, they were stationed on different ships.
Tiny kitteh!
Good morning.
We had a good rain last night but I don’t know how long it lasted. And I can’t find a good weather app that tells me the rainfall.
I woke up with chest pains this morning, and that’s not good. I need to lay low. (Reminds me of a song...Layla.) *snort*
Best wishes for laying low!
It’s warm and humid here. I don’t see why that required beeping us at 6:15, but oh well. I was dreaming about archery, because we were watching it on the Olympics streaming last night.
India defeated Taiwan in mixed pairs.
No laying low. At least not completely.
I’ll just do quiet things.
Happy Utah Statehood Day! *unngh*
Happy Utah Statehood Day! You could still be a territory, like American Samoa ;-).
I’m thinking of cutting my fingernails. It’s getting hard to type.
I did that yesterday. Today, I’ll polish them with Sally Hansen, since they like to break and split.
Now I’m going to listen to an uplifting talk, then check back in here, then fiddle with a talk of my own.
Done with one talk...now to work on the other.
Keeping in mind the time constraints, the new additions may not be easy without sacrificing some of the basics of my original.
Ohwell. Onward and upward.
;o]
I cut my nails. Much easier to type! My neighbor is having a yard sale, but I didn’t see anything I really wanted. Shannon followed me out to the mailbox and rolled over on her back, then came in to have her pill.
I got the polish off of mind but haven’t put fresh polish on. I’m side-tracked.
I think I’m going to take a break for a bit and watch some animals do wonderfully boring things like eat in beautiful or stark scenery and then get back to the business at hand. Unngh.
Excellent idea. I sat out in the yard for a while, but it was getting pretty hot and someone started using a power-edger up the street.
That lasted for a while, but with several interruptions for various things and a surprise text from Kevin about my favorite candy bar. I had to correct him, of course. But his was full of protein (nuts) and mine was full of chocolate, so. To each his own.
Now I’ll see if I can make a few more tweaks in the talk.
*tagline*
A letter came from you, with a painting of flower! Yay!
Kewl stuff!
Oh, good! I had a nap with a cat. Next, I might go to Walmart. I need bananas, yogurt, and diet cola.
I just had some leftover lunch and for the third time this week, I had a touch of food poisoning. I keep charcoal capsules on hand, so it’s no big deal. Just disconcerting to have it so often.
Oh, dear.
It’s probably because my ulcers have been acting up.
Oh, dear on that too!
Yepper. Too much stress in too many areas. I just need to get out of here.
Yes, you do. Maybe it will be soon!
I need to finish the forest manual outline. I’m at the most boring part, Tree Measurements.
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