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 ...
Yay!! Or as my mother would say, “H’ray fer our side!”
We won’t need more cat food for quite a long time.
Wasn’t that the idea? I bought dog food in 25 pound bags, even though my dog was only about 14 pounds.
Does Kathleen like her boots?
Yes. They’re the same as her old boots, only larger.
Vlad just turned up saying the mower is out of gas. If it’s not one darn thing, it’s two darn things.
Unngh...
I guess they need supper, too, huh? Didn’t your mother say something like, “What’s the point in eating? You just have to do it again later.”
We need something for lunch tomorrow, too. We’re going to a rope-climbing thing with Envirothon.
https://www.carolinatreetopchallenge.com/
w00t!
And that sentence yields itself to so many of my haywire interpretations I’ll just let it lie.
It turns out the kibble gets stale. I don’t know about anything that comes in cans. But we get 22 lb bags for our 53 lb puppy and she gets very excited when we open a new bag.
Yes, she thought eating was a bother because she just had to do it again a few hours later!
That looks fun! If I were 20 years younger... :o])
A simple narrative of my days is a catalog of absurdities.
Vlad decided they need a casserole, so James and I are making it.
That would have been when my mom swore to me that spreading peanut butter and jelly on bread was a casserole. If I disagreed she would ask me to show her what I meant.
I feel obligated to provide something for supper.
The casserole is in the oven.
You could provide moral support.
Or applause for a job well done.
In other news, I bought a hook to hang a lamp from the ceiling. The State of California says the ceiling hook could cause “cancer or reproductive harm.”
Well, California is full of cancer so what does it know? I feel sorry for the conservatives who live there.
Tiny floof just got it’s eyes open! Still trying to focus!
Good morning. Did you sleep well?
It’s 73° out right now, so not as chilly as yesterday, but still. Now I need to take my pills.
I made the mistake of checking the weather, then I had to check my email, then I had to check here, and here is where I’m stuck. So now, pills!
Good morning. I got up to use the bathroom several times, but other than that, okay. Jake was out!
I’ll call the youths about 7:00. We’ll leave for the climbing activity around 8:30.
How’s the new pillow?
I’d love to be going! At any rate, I hope it’s a fun day for everyone.
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