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 ...
Chicken salad sandwiches were good, as were the sugar cookies, and sometime tomorrow, we’ll have turkey and stuff.
The place smelled a little when I came home, so it’s time to run the ozone machine again tonight. Hopefully, once I get started on the walls, things will smell different when I’m gone for a few hours.
Hopefully, it will all be gone by the time you visit. :o]
Sorry about Tom’s roux!
I watched a football game today for the first time in probably 12 years...? Maybe longer.
Now, I’m going to sit and contemplate the situation I find myself in and see if there are any short-cuts.
Thank you Face for the Thanksgiving greeting/thought/wish …. May today and everyday forth be a blessing to each/all/everyone and especially you Face
Thank you, N-t-I! I’m a little closer to you, now, living in Dogpatch, AR, so I’m not such a stretch away if you want to bring Mrs N-t-I for a visit. It would be good to see you again.
I hope your day was fill with love and all good things!
‘Face
XO
Tom sorted it out, and we all had plenty to eat, and the leftovers will be cleared by the brothers in the next day or two. Oh, my, god, Bill’s facial hair! He should be the murderer in a Poirot show.
Happy Thanksgiving!
I have watched that, and I agree.
BTW, I think I ate too much...
I about stood up and cheered when that machine flew in over the trees at the end. THAT was, as is said, “a moment.”
Where can I get a transcript of that speech? I listened to a few minutes of it but I need to be able to break it down into manageable bites.
I do not like massive facial hair that enters a room a few minutes before the man does. It makes me recall Al Capp’s character, Earthquake McGoon, with his bushy beard and all the flies around it, the little bits of food on it, and the tiny critters in it. *shudder* There’s not a reason in the world for a man to have a beard like that.
FS has a goatee, and though I would prefer him with a bare face, this seems to be his persona as an adult. At least I don’t have to kiss him on the lips.
I think I might do that today when the grandchildren are watching me...
Bill’s beard and mustache look like an 1880s politician or Arthur Conan Doyle. I’ll sent you a picture if I got a good one.
It looks fine, but his face doesn’t match his clothes.
I concur on watching Secondhand Lions.
And even if it weren’t a great story line, it has Robert Duval and Michael Caine so it’s a great movie. But it also has a great story line.
See? There’s always that...
If it was the Chicago-Detroit game, don’t judge the NFL by that performance.
IMDB.com. It has a quotes section.
Here’s the salient part for you:
Hub: Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things a man needs to believe in the most. That people are basically good; that honor, courage, and virtue mean everything; that power and money, money and power mean nothing; that good always triumphs over evil; and I want you to remember this, that love... true love never dies. You remember that, boy. You remember that. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. You see, a man should believe in those things, because those are the things worth believing in.
I’ve watched football since before the very first Super Bowl, and even when we were stationed in Germany and got the games a day late, I watched it. Football is football, and I don’t really care who wins, as long as the game is good.
My favorite teams have changed over the years, but that’s OK, too. I’m allowed to change my mind! ;o]
Good morning. Happy Friday! Or Monday! Or whatever it is.
Gloomy rainy weather out there and a threat of some snow this afternoon/evening. We’ll see what actually develops.
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