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 ...
Eye beans would be okay with me.
Works for me! Who doesn’t like canned beans? (Probably everyone after reading this!)
Plus, when the baked beans meal is actually a competition it adds a little spice to dinner.
Will you eat the beans or will they eat you?
I have a fantastic spoon to make sure I am always victorious.
Florida man found with live grenade, clown mannequin inside truck
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/4007371/posts
Maybe not okay if Florida FReepers object?
I like that one!
(Ping to 3764)
Clowns with grenades or beans with eyes.
We have some difficult conundrums in UT these days.
I’m okay with Florida grenade clowns.
Absolutely, we do!
Reminds me of the days when the trolls showed up every day or so. We had to work fast to find a decent thread before it was ZOTted. Now we have to work hard to find a thread that fits the parameters we need.
(Sorry, zzeeman, I meant to ping you to #3764)
It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? All we have to do now is ask the Florida board if they would mind.
And now, because this was such a grueling day, I’m going to close this down.
Tomorrow, I’ll try to set up some health care that doesn’t eat me alive; today it was trying to get my new phone finally set up. It took over three hours, but that included the online chat as well as the data transfer. But it’s done, and I’m glad I didn’t try to do it before I moved.
So goodnight, Kiddos!
Congratulations on the phone! I hope you have a good night!
Thanks!!
Boy, I about missed this part of the conversation. We had Aggravation when I was a kid.
Playing that game is how I learned not to cuss, hit people, and throw things.
Looking around society, you can sure tell it’s not a very popular game, anymore.
We played Monopoly a lot. I learned to let my mother win.
Oorang-utan, fallen grandmaster of the Utans.
Oorang?
Maybe he should have knocked...
Such a new little floof!
Good morning. I hope you slept well.
Another day of trying to get settled. Another day of confusion and mayhem in the brain department. Unngh.
Some things HAVE to be done today. No stalling. Life goes on without me, otherwise.
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