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 ...
The new pillow is a little soft. I used the old one last night.
I wish you could go, too. I don’t plan to climb myself, but it will be interesting seeing the children doing it!
I prefer a harder pillow, myself. Maybe Jake will prefer the softer one.
As far as I’m concerned, and at my age, all sports are spectator sports!
That reminds me: I want to put in a folding chair.
Put in a folding chair! It’s more comfortable than the ground to sit on!
It turned out there were picnic tables, but I was mostly wandering around taking pictures of kids and mushrooms.
Then we came home, and I fell down with Jake.
I was surprised at how many different kinds of mushrooms there were!
I hope I dream of that place at some time in my remaining years because it looked so beautiful and peaceful.
The weather doesn’t know what it wants to do and I need to try and get my barometer back up and functioning. I emptied it in anticipation, but left it on the wall, and I find myself still checking it to see if a storm is coming, equal the pain in my joints!
Now, I really am going to bed for good until morning.
¡Mañana!
Yes, there was a great variety of mushrooms and also some slime mold.
I hope you have a good night!
Morning kitteh is much more alert than I am.
Good morning. I hope you slept well.
And yes, I had a good sleep, thank you. I even shut the alarm off and slept an extra hour. I’m glad there’s no church today because I’d never be able to make it!
Things are going to be very much on the slow side today, I think.
How are you feeling after your outing? It’s nice that the offspring are old enough now that they don’t need such close supervision all the time.
And now, I’m going to go take a shower and try to warm up. If I had worked at it just a little, I probably could still be asleep. ;o]
I’m glad you had a good night. I slept pretty well, although I wish I had gone to bed earlier.
I’m sneezy today.
Thanks. I even slept longer between pit stops than normal. Three hours the first time, then four hours, then three hours and another hour. Any time I go three hours between is good sleep, and I’ll take it. ;o]
It’s awful to be sneezy! Allergies?
I’ll be watching the Stake Conference from home. It looks like we’re all having to wear masks again and I packed mine. I don’t want the disposables. I was my Kermit masks!
I think it’s allergies. I took an antihistimine and eventually stopped sneezing.
Thanks, that was fun.
I usually set the number of pieces to 300, and when I’m listening to uplifting talks, I put a jigsaw together. I don’t often get one finished in the usual 26-36 minutes, but once in a while, I run across a talk that borders on 50 minutes and a 300-piece puzzle that’s easy enough to complete in that time. It keeps me out of bars and off the streets. ;o]
My mother plays Spider Solitaire and Mahjong on her computer.
Oh, good!
I have a blue mark on my left ankle bone and can’t think of what I hit it against. I don’t often feel injuries to my feet, so I normally wear socks. Anyway, it hurts when I touch it, and I took a picture of it in case it changes in any way besides getting purple, then green.
Yesterday was the last day of my tea cycle, and I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ll enjoy the next two weeks without it, though!
I do them both, as well, but not for a long time. I do Mahjong when I’m waiting. Spider Solitaire is a game Kevin taught me. Of all things!
But jigsaws are my favorite. I used to work them as a kid, but we always had a table I could put them together on. I don’t have a table, now, and if I did, it would be stacked with boxes.
I gave the table to Chuck and he gave it to Brian, so it has a good home. Brian will most likely refinish it, and I say, good for him!
I mostly read.
I read but these days, I have to do it in small batches unless it’s a very good mystery. Adult ADHD has taken a lot of the fun out of things. There was a day when I always had a book at hand. These days, if I read at bedtime, like I did for most of my life, it’s a guarantee that I’ll fall asleep within a page or two.
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