iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

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mattie lubchansky @mattielubchansky.com · 15h

no....no!!!!!

lowly worm is now driving the trolley problem trolley :(

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poorly drawn cats @poorlycatdraw.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

i can feel the spookiness in the air

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

#MinCup26 Semifinal 2 It’s a match sure to break hearts between industrial powerhouses piezoelectric #quartz and lubricating #graphite! (With the correct links this time!) VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

Split photo between a pair of glassy-clear terminated quartz crystals and flaky blades of dark grey graphite at odd angles to each other, with green crystals around them.

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

#MinCup26 Quarterfinal 4 Linked by archaic translations and mineralogical misunderstandings, the quarterfinals are ending in hexagons with vivid pyromorphite vs writeable graphite. VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

Split photo between translucent lemon-yellow hexagonal crystal jutting out of a mass of shiny black bubbling minerals and metallic silver graphite hexagon with crosshatched surface set even within a matte translucent white rough crystal mass.

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Brandon Bishop @brandontbishop.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

*examines (b) on the right* COSMIC CUBE VOTE CUBE VOTE #HALITE VOTE #MINCUP26

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Vicky Veritas @vickyveritas.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

In the dark and silent deep, Where the ancient oceans sleep, Crystalline and fiercely bright, Wakes the cubic form of light. #Halite, born of sun and sea, Bound in perfect symmetry. The Salt of the Earth #MinCup26 ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology #geosky #GIS 🍎 🪐 🔭 🌋 📚 🌿

White cubic halite stalactites. From Mindat: https://www.mindat.org/photo-427956.html

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

#MinCup26 Quarterfinals 3 It's a pair of dissolvable beauties as rare and complicated #Julienite is against ubiquitous and straightforward #Halite. VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

Split photo of close-ups of minerals bright blue julienite in radiating fan shapes within a dark rock and clear perfect cubes of halite suspended in clear liquid, tiny bubbles hanging onto some of the crystals

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Eos @eos.org · 26/09/2026

See here! We're voting for #quartz in today's #MinCup26 quartz-erfinals. Gaze at this quartz (and bronze, marble, frit and obsidian) @metmuseum.org find from ancient Greece ... www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

Eyes ready to be inset into an over-life-size sculpture in ancient Greece

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Ma$on @masonfromtwitter.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Abolish slavery. Abolish prisons.

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Natalia (娜塔莉) @wrycritic.bsky.social · 03/02/2026

Retro palaeoart: Polish (1929, interwar) popular science palaeontology book "O czym mówią kamienie?" ("What do rocks tell us"), with charming illustrations. Written by Józef Siemiradzki, a Professor of Geology at the University of Lviv.

O czym mówią kamienie? a theropod attacking a saurpod

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Schmidt Ocean Institute @schmidtocean.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Siphonophore — the grizzly bear of squishy things. ROV pilots recorded this footage at 1589 meters during the 2025 #AsgardArchaea expedition in the deep waters of Uruguay. (Sound on to learn more.)

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wyotitania @wyotitania.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

And a salt cathedral carved around 2000 in a salt mine in Italy. The Realmonte salt cathedral was dedicated to the patron saint of miners and feature and is apparently a small part of a still operating halite salt mine.

images from inside a cathedral carved into a salt mine.

Source: https://epod.usra.edu/blog/2023/01/subterranean-cathedral-of-salt-in-sicily.html

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MineralExpert.org @mexporg.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

#Andalusite belongs to important petrology minerals and forms interesting crystal growths and pseudomorphs. Learn more in our detailed overview: mineralexpert.org/article/anda...

mineralexpert.org

Andalusite – Mineral Properties, Photos and Occurrence — Mineral Expert

Andalusite is a common aluminosilicate, very important for metamorphic petrology and ceramic industry

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Chris Rowan @allochthonous.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

⚒️ lt is clear that a lot of people touring Yellowstone forget to hold onto their hats - amongst other things: "Yellowstone's Geology team has removed more than 20,100 pieces of trash, 5,600 rocks and sticks, and over 280 hats from hydrothermal areas around the park--a record-setting year so far!"

usgs.gov

Caps, trash, and other hydrothermal funky finds: 2026 edition

Hold onto your hats and sunglasses—and your trash! Yellowstone National Park’s Geology team collects anything lost or left behind by visitors in the park’s hydrothermal areas, leading to some pretty i...

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Pretty Ugly Things @prettyuglythings.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

It's going to be hard to beat chrysocolla (from Arizona)

Detail of a mineral surface covered with faintly botryoidal teal chrysocolla, and spotted with saturated aqua spheroids of varying sizes. Some of the spheres are near-black.

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

#MinCup26 Round 1 Match 15 It's blue vs red for vibrant cyan-blue #Chrysocolla vs rich chocolatey red-brown #Xocolatlite. Are you with the hydrous copper silicate or the tellurate? VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

Split photo of rounded towers of aqua-blue crystals resembling a puffer spike ball and radial splats of reddish-brown crystals resembling lichen growth.

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

Native to Papua/New Guinea & northeastern Australia, they specialize in eating pollen & nectar, carrying more pollen & flying further each night than any other pollinator. Their little tongues show specialization in this diet: covered in raised papillae. (📷: Tolga Bat Hospital)

A little brown bat with a fox-like face and big brown eyes with small pupils sticks its tongue into a dish held for that purpose. The tongue is pink/red and covered in little spikes that look soft, like a bottle brush?

The original caption on the Tolga Bat Hospital site was:
“Their tongues are long and covered in rows of papillae forming a nectar-absorbing mop” Sue Churchill

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c0nc0rdance @c0nc0rdance.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

The year is 400 BCE & you're in one of the hottest places on Earth, the Dasht-e Lut (Lut Desert) of Southeastern Iran. Wouldn't it be nice to have a refreshing sorbet? A =dessert= in the =desert=? Thanks to this structure, you can! Let's learn about ancient Iranian refrigerators called 'yakhchāl'.

Yakhchāl of Abarkuh, Iran
Pastaitaken - Wikimedia
Yakhchal of Yazd province

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Eos @eos.org · 13/09/2026

Happy International Day of Caves and Karst! #IDCK Karst aquifers supply drinking water to much of Earth's population! And caves host biodiverse ecosystems, archaeological remains, & more. Flickr PC m01229, CC BY 2.0 Nick Bramhall, CC BY-SA 2.0 David Stanley, CC BY 2.0 Harald Kanins, CC BY-SA 2.0

Large stalactites hang form the roof of a cave.

Water pours in through an overhead opening in a cave.

Gray rock ridges that almost look like folded fabric

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MineralExpert.org @mexporg.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Excellent #Pyrrhotite crystal from the tungsten mine in the Felbertal, Hohe Tauern, Austria. #MinCup26 #MinCup #mineral #crystal #mineralogy #mineralexpert #sulfide

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Pretty Ugly Things @prettyuglythings.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Calcite might be "common" but it has a lot of unusual forms. I shared this specimen last year... bsky.app/profile/pret...

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Pretty Ugly Things @prettyuglythings.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Hematite is frequently a color-causing agent. Here are several iterations of calcite with hematite inclusions. (From Mexico, Greece, Morocco, Mexico, and Mexico)

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Pretty Ugly Things @prettyuglythings.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Nooooo calcite is trailing, add more pretty pictures!

A bin full of cleaved calcite rhombs, semi-translucent with light pastel tones of yellow, pink, and green

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Ele Willoughby @minouette.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Vote Calcite for trilobite eyes! #MinCup26 #Calcite #FossilFriday

My hand holding a large trilobite fossil (belonging to my son)

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MineralExpert.org @mexporg.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

#Calcite is very often UV-sensitive, resulting in various hues of red, pink, orange, and yellow. This example is from Pohled Quarry, Czech Republic - lit by long-wave 365 nm UV. #MinCup26 #MinCup #mineral #crystal #mineralogy #uv #fluorescence #blacklight

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Ryan J Hollister @phaneritic.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

You’ve heard of stalactites and stalagmites but did you know #Calcite is usually the mineral that makes really cool sideways speleothems called helictites Locally, Black Chasm Natl National Landmark is home to some of the best helictites in the world with one looking like a dragon.

A mass of helictites protruding from a marble wall. The centerpiece looks like a dragons head or I think it looks more like a seahorse head. It is surrounded by a bunch of what looks like freshly extruded pasta that’s curly queuing and going lots of different directions. The dragons head I think is about three or 4 inches tall with it snout protruding out two or 3 inches. The whole massive tights in the photo is probably a couple feet wide by about a foot or two tall.

A very poorly lit mass of helictites covering an entire cavern wall. The field of view in this picture is probably about 10’ x 8’ with each of the individual little elites being on the order of seven or 8 inches but if you straighten them out, they’d probably be well over a foot.

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Robert Mahon @bedform.org · 11/09/2026

The skin of your teeth isn't even thin enough to describe this margin

Calcite - 1065 votes
Julienite - 1066 votes

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Pretty Ugly Things @prettyuglythings.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Calcite with chalcopyrite, galena (Bixby Missouri)

Detail of a mineral formation like oyster mushrooms, with layered round chalcopyrite clusters rimmed with fine white calcite. The chalcopyrite has gold-to-purple iridescence.

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Pretty Ugly Things @prettyuglythings.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Hematite is frequently a color-causing agent. Here are several iterations of calcite with hematite inclusions. (From Mexico, Greece, Morocco, Mexico, and Mexico)

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Pretty Ugly Things @prettyuglythings.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Calcite might be "common" but it has a lot of unusual forms. I shared this specimen last year... bsky.app/profile/pret...

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Pretty Ugly Things @prettyuglythings.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Calcite got its clock cleaned in round 1 last year. I (naively) voted for it to win the whole cup this year!

Scarlett Johansson crying meme from Marriage Story

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Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️ @spahn711.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

...rotating a piece of clear calcite toward the sky creates two images of equal brightness only when pointing directly at the Sun. This allowed the Vikings to navigate the fog-dense North Atlantic, even when the sun was entirely hidden behind clouds or below the horizon. Great demo of this here:

youtube.com

How the Vikings may have used calcite to locate the position of the Sun in a cloudy sky

YouTube video by Michael Masuda

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Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️ @spahn711.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

It gets even better! Some calcite is phosphorescent, meaning that even after a radiation source is removed, it will continue to luminesce. In other words, it glows in the dark! This always draws oohs & aahs from my students. Examples show calcite in a fossilized clam shell and a stalactite slice:

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Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️ @spahn711.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Many specimens of calcite are highly fluorescent, meaning they emit light when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. Here's what my calcite collection looks like with the quick pass of a UV flashlight. Some glow so intensely red that it is hard to believe it is real!

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Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️ @spahn711.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

First, I'll share the beauty of calcite through my personal collection. Notice a lot of different shapes? That's because calcite is the mineral with the most forms! There are 800+ documented forms, and it is possible for multiple forms to combine on a single crystal. There are thousands of combos!

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Alex Spahn 🌋🌪️☄️ @spahn711.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Allow me to make the case for why calcite should not only earn your vote but win the tournament. Calcite is the mineral with the most forms, is highly fluorescent & phosphorescent, helped explain the wave nature of light, laid the foundation for optics/polarizers, and even calms an upset tummy. A 🧵:

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

#MinCup26 Round 1 Match 11 It's a pair of minerals that pull off near-magical tricks with their properties as ubiquitous #Calcite is up against rarity #Julienite. VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

mineralcup.org

Vote in Round 1 Match 11 — Mineral Cup & Ore Cup

Vote in Calcite vs Julienite Credit: Harold Moritz and David Hospital

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John P. Friel, Ph.D. @friel.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Coprolites aren’t my favorite fossils, but they’re a solid number two. 😀

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Angry Rutabaga @streamlass.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

The Jurassic Fort Dodge formation in Iowa contains up to 30 feet of gypsum. It's been so heavily mined there's some concern it may be the first known geologic formation entirely removed by human activity. igs.iihr.uiowa.edu/igs/publications…

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Brandon Bishop @brandontbishop.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Gypsum is essentially what you get in hyperarid regions when water containing calcium and sulfur dry out, or when the same sort of water moves through cracks in rock. In Mexico, this has resulted in the growth of immense gypsum crystals in Naica Cave: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_of...

Photo from Naica Cave, taken from the linked Wikipedia page, showing spires of white gypsum jutting at different angles from the floor of the cave to the roof. Each crystal is 10 to 12 meters tall (note silhouette of a caver at the bottom left of the image).

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

#MinCup26 Round 1 Match 10: It’s a pair of soft minerals that form near the surface as heavyweight #pyromorphite is up against evaporate #gypsum. VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

Split photo of a scattering of highlighter-yellow log-shaped Pyromorphite crystals and a dense cluster of translucent white flat, rounded gypsum crystals that resemble a flower bud

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Dr. Merritt Rae Turetsky @queenofpeat.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Forget planting trees for a second. Let's talk about BOGS. Did you know that peatlands cover a tiny 3% of Earth’s land, but store MORE CARBON than all the world's forests combined?They are an ultimate MVP of our climate system and it’s time we start hyping them. Join me! 🧵 1/

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lizardbreath 🦎🪦🎃 @spindlypete.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

🚨 MONTY DON IS RETIRING FROM GARDENERS WORLD

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Chiitan🌈ちぃたん☆ @chiitan.love · 07/09/2026

when hate is easier, let’s choose love. When love comes, let’s make more room for it🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈 What transgender people want is not special proof or permission. It is to live as themselves, with love and pride. That’s all Chiitan hopes light will be lit in the lives of transgender people now in the dark.

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Mineral Cup & Ore Cup @mineralcup.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

#MinCup26 Round 1 Match 7 It's a color-changing match of informative minerals! Time-tracker #Monazite-(Ce)'s yellow in sunlight darkens to orange in incandescent light while index mineral #Andalusite is pleochroic VOTE: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re... RESULTS: www.mineralcup.org/2026/vote-re...

Split photo with yellow andalusite, backlit to show its color and its growth patterns, which have four-fold symmetry with branching dark streaks in each direction and a glassy amber-yellow crystal point in a craggy setting of smaller, lighter yellow crystals.

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Brett "Solidarity 2026" Banditelli @banditelli.org · 06/09/2026

when you're preparing for a long night of murder 🪶

a western screech owl in a tree, looking skulky

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Vicky Veritas @vickyveritas.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

‘’Phantoms’’ in minerals are snapshots of earlier stages of growth captured inside due to changes in pressure, temperature, or hydrothermal chemistry as in this #quartz. More 👇🏼 www.geologyin.com/2023/12/phan... #MinCup26 ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology #geosky #GIS 🍎 🪐 🔭 🌋

Translucent Quartz crystal with imprints of earlier growth stages of the mineral.

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