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 ...
Rest well!
“... just can’t figure out how to get the SIM card out...”
If there’s not a slot for one that you can see, it may not have one. Some of those things were built so you have to connect them to a computer to download what you’ve recorded.
If you CAN see a card slot, and it has a card in it, but you can’t get a grip on the thing, try pushing the card IN until it stops, then release it. Many of these card slots have that clicky ball-point-pen action to them.
Polar opposites. People who like to work hard for the sake of working hard are crazy.
Every living person can say, “I’m a survivor.”
I have no idea what they say in the hereafter.
“You really don’t expect me to eat that, do you?”
See? It just needed someone with a few more smarts than me!
Thanks! ;o]
Yes, we’ve all survived something horrendous to us, but some of us go through life repeating the same lessons because we didn’t learn the first time.
And others didn’t know they were lessons.
The young man called and wants the Tracker tomorrow, not Thursday, and I agreed, though I think I’ll change my mind and keep it until Thursday. I want to say goodbye to Casey, the mechanic, and let him know the Tracker is still going to be his to work on.
So now that I’ve stayed up past my Silly Self Time, I’m going to bed. Tomorrow will be here sooner than I want it to!
‘Night again, folks!
Ping to silliness elsewhere:
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...the Calvinists Who Cant Spell for Crap.
Bipedal Trans-Siberian Quaker with nine kids. So, they got one wrong ...
Too funny for words. Oh. Sorry. What a bunch of funny words! Thanks, HK!
One-legged Gender Fluid White On Top of Old Smokey.
That last doesn’t make any sense!
Kitteh is waiting for the sun to shine.
Good morning. Did you sleep well?
I need to go take my shower and then maybe I’ll feel better. I’m cold, and didn’t sleep all that well, and my mind is playing tricks on me. They’re not nice tricks, either.
It’s 56° and I said I’d be out of here before winter. This is as close as I want to be to winter here, again. I don’t like these mountain winters.
So I’m going to go get warm. I’ll be back!
“All covered with snow.”
Good morning. Not bad, thanks: Jake was out!
How about you?
Oh, I see. Maybe tomorrow will be better, and anyway, you’ll be moving on in ... less than one week!
Good point. It’s a happy Wednesday here.
Good morning, everyone. Happy Humph Day.
We have sun today. It seems strange after so many days of clouds and rain.
Is there a disadvantage for people who can’t spell entersect ... er intirsect ... er intersectonal?
I’ll take it. Off to the races.
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