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 ...
Tom (aka “Son B: Thor”) is between jobs, so he’ll be taking his brothers on Driving Adventures as soon as the summer short-session ends a week from now, with an A in Environmental Philosophy and the essential C- in Physics. (Might even get a C+.)
The cats go under the furniture for storms sometimes.
Good morning, all!
Cats (and dogs) are wonderful things to have around. Birds are company, of sorts, but they don’t cuddle well.
Oddly enough, in our house the cats stayed outside and the dogs came in. My mother was strange that way, and I don’t know why.
Yes, Nully, the Undead Thread has been around long enough to witness Vlad’s birth AND his getting a driver’s license many years later!
Good morning. I’m off to wash.
Aww...I want that little calico!! What a pretty little girl!
Did you sleep well last night?
It will be cooling off this week, and I think by Thursday, the temperature will be down to 85° for a high. Jacket time again!
Not bad, thanks. A lot of turning over. My joints never seem comfortable.
Bo-y, do I know THAT feeling! Try some Arnica. It helps with arthritis and bursitis.
In the meanwhile, I washed my face off, made the bed and folded the sleep shirts so now, I’m ready for Walmart. I’m going to miss going to and from in the daylight. :o|
Since I packed two boxes yesterday, I’ll force myself to sit today, because. And tomorrow, since the switch in the kitchen is fixed, I’ll work on the stuff in there. Once that is done, there will be only miscellaneous stuff to pack in boxes marked, what else — misc.
;o])
(I slay me!)
Good morning. Happy Twosday!
I see kitteh is going to boldly go where no kitteh has gone before.
Twosday it is!
I made it to Walmart but as usual, there is one Goofy Gus with a ginormous truck, pulling a 200’ long trailer that makes the right turn and merges into traffic because my tiny little SUV should automatically give him the right-of-way, even though that is MY right.
It wasn’t bad enough that I managed to be ahead of him, he had to keep his brights on, just to show me, boy! To make awful things worse, I got to Walmart and realized I had left my phone home.
But wait! There’s more! Walmart was not only out of the 24-bottle cases of water (as they have been for the last month) but today, they were out of the 40 bottles of water. One guy was stocking that aisle (I have no clue what with) but I mentioned in passing that I guessed I wouldn’t get any water. He said everyone was out of it.
No, said I, I’ll stop at Lin’s on the way home and get some. “THEY’VE got WATER???”
They stack it outside so I just pulled as close to the stack as I could get, went in and paid for two cases and put them in the truck.
But Walmart was also out of the little ice cream cups that I like (Second Breakfast, when I take my second dose of morphine.) I don’t know who else sells those, so I settled for some Klondike Bars.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it.
James and Vlad have achieved their learners permits. Keep off the roads for your own good, folks.
BTW Pookie's Toons are especially good this morning...
Yes, it must have been them in disguise that I (almost) ran into this morning.
Should they be congratulated?
They should be congratulated. They have not actually driven yet, except in their official training.
Well, then, congratulation to Vlad and the James’!
I see great things looming in their futures!
Hopefully not dump trucks.
Exactly! The thing I had the encounter with this morning was as big as a dump truck, for sure.
If the weather clears in the next few days, I’ll take them over to Lake Park to maneuver carefully around the blocks.
I’ll just keep an eye out for them. If they make it this far north I’ll stop them and check their compass.
Search them for my credit card, too.
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