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 ...
Good Morning!
Good morning. Happy Trash Day! They’re picking mine up right now.
Tomorrow is trash day here, but sometimes, he gets confused and comes on Monday or Friday.
The Lawn Guy has no set time or day. He just shows up when I don’t want him to and makes a lot of noise. (I shouldn’t have said anything: He just now showed up!)
Someone, please remind me to remove the porch lights, the wind chimes, and Charlie’s door mat!! I don’t want to leave them behind!
Remove the porch lights, the wind chimes, and Charlie’s door mat!
You’re welcome.
We’re out of diet cola. I could send Patrick on a Quest, I suppose.
Thank you!
The mail man brought me a letter!! YAY!
Me, too.
I think that letter has been Overtaken By Events, but you’ll figure it out when you see it.
I’m “quickly” making a baby bonnet for my doctor’s baby, who is being carried by someone else. (My appointment is next week.)
It’s a pattern I learned from an old (probably my age, now) lady when I was 14, who got the pattern when SHE was 14 from her grandmother, so I figure it must have a date stamp of somewhere in the mid-1800’s. But I know it by memory, which is good, because I can’t read directions these days.
Yes, Patrick should go on a Quest!
Little guy looks like he needs winding; like he was in the middle of something and his clockworks puttered out.
Yes, indeed. Some types of math I’m very good at doing. ;o]
In the meantime, my early rising this morning has finally caught up with me, and I think it’s time I take my silly self down the hall.
Tomorrow will be a library day, but it will be quite busy before that happens. I have to go to Lin’s early in the AM, but when I get back, Things will Happen, and probably in a hurry!
DiL send me a text earlier this morning to tell me she was getting excited. Not as excited as I am!
So now, before I fall asleep into the keyboard, I’ll be leaving you for now. Have a good night’s sleep, all of you, and I’ll pick up the threads tomorrow.
Have a good night. I’m getting the van cleaned.
Kittens are like that.
All vegetative matter goes to the chickens (or compost), burn what is easily combustible, bury what isn't, and take a few household bags to the dump on Sunday morning on the way to/from church.
Easy peasy!
w00t!
Like this?
Ah, the joys of rural life. It was like that at my grandparents’ place.
I didn’t know that existed.
I found some Zero-Calorie Cola (not the same as Diet Cola) at Harris Teeter after I got the van washed at Auto Bell. Maybe I’ll send Pat for ice, though, if he ever comes out of his room.
“...if he ever comes out of his room.”
I’ve discovered my xfinity has the ability to assign devices to persons, and to control the hours when those devices are permitted to connect. This is a marvelous tool for flushing teens and collegians out of their lairs.
Yeah, I can do that, too. However, I don’t usually bother with Pat. If I really want something, I just walk in the room.
“...I just walk in the room.”
Absolutely the preferred method, so long as it still works.
If it stops working, the nebbish will be given his eviction notice.
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