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 ...
I’m done for the day. Two medium boxes from the bedroom stuffed. Drawers are emptied, closet shelf emptied, most hangers emptied...
Moving right along!
FS just called asking about deposits on the place and I told him she said we’d take care of it when I came in to sign the contract.
Probably best not to be sniffing marks-a-lot.
w00t!
There. I fixed it.
Thanks! *don’t shoot me*
All of a sudden, I’m tired. I can’t figure that out! Nothing else will get done today, but when I get Charlie’s letter done tomorrow morning, I’ll go to Walmart, then get back to work. A lot of the stuff is now in the “MISC” category, so it will come together fast.
The hard part will be the suitcase, and that’s the one that I’ll work on tomorrow. Saturday will be the rest of it. Tossing it all into boxes. As soon as I’m sure I have nothing else to print, I’ll box up the printer and call it good.
Life is just like that sometimes.
Yes, it is, and soon, I’ll be having one more move behind me. I get very tired of packing and unpacking but the moves are nice. New places, new people, new things. Wanderlust.
It keeps you from getting too much stuff!
This is true!
I contacted my doctor to see if he would give me a couple of months extra on the prescriptions because of the move, then printed out a page for the utility company and will put it in the mail tomorrow.
I finally got in touch with the cable company and they’re sending me a box to put their equipment in so I don’t have the same problem I had in Henderson. They had almost two weeks to send a container and they didn’t, then they had the nerve to charge me for the equipment.
I disputed it on my credit report and all of a sudden, it isn’t there any more. ;o]
And now, because of the various types of stress I’ve had today, I’m taking my aggravating bundle and putting it where it belongs. In bed!
I hope all of you have a good night.
I hope you have a good night, too.
So do I! I hope my sleep patterns improve once I get settled.
If I get a good night’s sleep one night, I spend the next six or seven nights with insomnia. Then I crash and it starts all over again. So I hope to see some good changes.
And thanks!
Happy Humph Day!
Wow—unusual marking on this kitteh—thank you.
Sleep well, ‘Face.
You’re welcome. That much black on a calico isn’t typical.
A laugh about oz land.
Pinging those who have gone on ahead, you’d have loved this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLTGXblgUoc
THAT was hilarious!!
I’m sure all those who have gone ahead have gotten as big a laugh as I did!
Thanks, Darks. :o])
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