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, all 800 of you ;-).
It’s raining right now, but the forecast says “few showers” by late afternoon. I bought extra rain ponchos.
Well, I sorta had no choice on that 800 if I were going to comment on yours and ArGee’s posts about posting!
I think whatever you want concerning the weather is what you should have! I need to get busy and do my rain dance here to try and ease the drought.
Clever you, buying extra ponchos. Maybe that’s what we should do here — buy ponchos, rain boots and umbrellas! ;o]
That some would confine God to 6000 years to do his business and others 13 billion years says something about the human need to put God in confined box. Paul said that even human reasoning would be enough to recognize the hand of God behind all creation so that no human souls would be with out excuse if they rejected Christ.
Science would be great if only God, who hates unjust weights and measures, did the science. Science suffers in that it is humans that do the science. Scientists themselves, as this current crop is shaping out to be, as a lot, tend to be not so self knowledgeable as to how their own pre-biases have corrupted their work. Their leftist biases cause them to miss or at worst deliberately discard any deviance of data that would cloud the desirable political aims of their work. Can we cite Mann’s distorted climate “hockey stick” as one example?
Good morning. Happy Friday Eve!
The keyz iz upside downz.
w00t!
There is an old story about a drought-stricken part of Oklahoma. A church decided to call a prayer meeting to ask God to end the drought. A few people on their way to the meeting were riding together and they stopped for gas and some went into the store. They told the station manager they were going to a prayer meeting to end the drought. He expressed his atheism by telling them it was a complete waste of their time. They said they’d see and went on their way.
At the end of the prayer meeting the skies opened up. It was exactly the kind of rain the area needed, gentle and steady and forecast to last for several hours. On the way back that same group stopped at the same station to ask the manager what they thought about the prayer meeting now.
He asked them, “Do you really think it’s raining now because you all went to a meeting at your church?”
One replied, “Yes, we really believe God answered our prayer.”
At that point he grabbed the spokesman by the shirt, shoved him against the wall and said, “Then why on earth did you wait so long to pray?”
Truth!
But people in these parts have been praying for the better part of two years for the drought to end. The radar maps show little clumps of showers in a diameter of at least 1000 miles but nothing appreciable.
Lake Mead is at the lowest point in its history. And in the late 80s, they had to drain some of the water from it. That was before they made that unholy pact with CA to sell them the water the desert needs for the golf courses.
*tagline*
I just went to Walmart to get some oil and a filter. I checked online prices, and decided they were far too high (I use high-mileage, 5-30W) and checked Walmart which was half the lowest price.
So out I went. But no Fram PH3614 filters. Jiffy Lube doesn’t carry the oil weight and type I need, so I figured they would charge an arm and a leg for their own filter.
A guy from the automotive shop came out and saw me, said he’d get someone to help me, which he did. I asked about the filters and he said the PH3614s were “all warehoused out.” So he sold me one from the shop at about half the price, and I was so very happy! “Tender mercies,” and all that!
Now to sort pills!
I need to stop putting around and get Kathleen’s clothes packed.
Try as I might, I can’t seem to make sense of it, so what I’ve done, in lieu of being expert in the field, is order “HTML For Dummies” ($4.09, eBay, free S&H) and when it comes, I will begin re-learning HTML.
I need to do this for myself because I’m not happy with a stagnant brain. For a while, it was extremely difficult and often impossible to learn new things, so I couldn’t be trained on new jobs, equipment, machines, etc. I’m hoping the desire to learn is because the capability may be there once again.
I can do only a few things with html.
The rain has stopped for now. I’m going to put my shoes on and load our things in the van.
Some things are harder than others for me, and often, I just need lots of time to think about the directions and then try to put them into practice.
This book will help me, so I can post photos in your absence. And other things, when I want to feel part of the bunch. ;o]
Have a safe drive, and if possible, let me know when you’ve arrived!
It’s less than half an hour from home, the same place we go for day camp. If it’s not pouring, and I have enough signal, I’ll send you a snap of our camp when it’s set up.
We’re not leaving until 3:30 EDT at the earliest. Our official check-in is at 4:20; everyone from our group has to be there.
Cute!
Now if you could just provide one for tomorrow and Sunday, I’d be a happy person, DC!
Meowdy to you!
Good morning.
I hope you had a good night!
Now I’m going to shower and then write to Charlie.
See ya!
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