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 Post subject: Demons and wonders...of the mineral world
PostPosted: Sat May 23, 2020 12:11 pm 
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'Demons and Wonders', I'm borrowing that title from a french edition of H.P. Lovecraft, since we shall now venture into the dark, creepy, gloomy corners of mineralogy :smt077

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Angry Halloween pumpkin (Agate from Morocco)

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Haunted mineral? Apparition of an aquamarine spectre in an alcove of albite. From Pakistan.

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An agate cabochon which also seem to be haunted by spirits

It may not be that creepy, but that's only a beginning...


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...arachnophobia anyone? The remains of this creepy-crawly that had ventured into a copper mine of Arizona were slowly replaced by copper. That makes a weird pseudomorph.

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Horror out of blazing light, a scorpion-spider caught in amber from Myanmar. This 100 million years old Chimerachne only looks big under the microscope.

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Fossilized two-headed "dragon" from China. This cretaceous aquatic reptile, a young hyphalosaurus, is showing a rare malformation (bicephaly). As an adult it could have exceeded one meter in length.


Opal has long been associated to an evil influence, but for performing black magic, just bring an agate...

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The bloody entrails of an agate. Those hellish agates with red hematite core are known as 'crater agates' and are found in Patagonia.

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This one must be possessed by the japanese demon-god of thunder, Raijin, staring from dark skies with infuriated eyes :smt096
https://64.media.tumblr.com/6777cf035f0 ... o1_500.jpg

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Another agate (from Turkey), staring at you in a badly disturbing way.


Memento Mori! Remember you shall die, and return to dust...or turquoise

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Bones in the mud...have turned into turquoise. This is known as odontolite. While these bones, found in Nevada, are of animal origin, there is also such a thing as human odontolite, such as this jawbone recovered from a mine in Utah: https://www.mindat.org/photo-683223.html

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Funeral flowers...of atacamite and chalcanthite grown from a mouse corpse, which was found in a russian copper mine. Collection of the Fersman Mineralogical Museum in Moscow.

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The fossilized skull of the Altamura man, covered with calcite concretions, as found in the Lamalunga Cave in Italy.

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The copper mummy. In a Chile mine was found the copper-mineralized cadaver of a pre-Colombian indian who was killed in a mining accident 550 A.D. It is now on display in the American Museum of Natural History.


I had saved the most terrifying for last, with a beautifully macabre gemological artifact:

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A pre-Colombian mask consisting of turquoise and black lignite mosaic over human skull, staring at you with its eyes of polished pyrite (surrounded by rings of white conch shell). Representing the god Tezcatlipoca, 15-16th century, British Museum.


...and just when I thought things couldn't get any creepier, I heard of lithopedions!

These aren't actually minerals, since they are of organic origin and unrelated to any geological process, still, these stones are made of mineral matter, similarly to kidney stones...only a lot creepier!
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These are stone babies aka lithopedions. That is a foetus that calcified in-vivo.
More info here

Good night, sweet dreams...


Last edited by cascaillou on Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:29 pm, edited 12 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Demons and wonders...of the mineral world
PostPosted: Sun Sep 27, 2020 12:38 pm 
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Halloween is coming :twisted:


Last edited by cascaillou on Sun Oct 04, 2020 3:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Demons and wonders...of the mineral world
PostPosted: Sun Sep 27, 2020 9:06 pm 
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Irish Ghost agate
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 Post subject: Re: Demons and wonders...of the mineral world
PostPosted: Mon Sep 28, 2020 3:07 pm 
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I picked up this flint in the courtyard of the Stepped Pyramid in Sakkara. When I cut it open and polished it I found this little figure. I've always thought it looked like a little skeleton ghost in a cavern. This seemed very appropriate considering the location, which surely, is haunted!


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 Post subject: Re: Demons and wonders...of the mineral world
PostPosted: Thu Oct 01, 2020 9:47 am 
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A very interesting serial :evil:

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"I always believed in being myself"- Thelonious Monk


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 Post subject: Re: Demons and wonders...of the mineral world
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2020 9:43 am 
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I've been adding a very disturbing agate...


Last edited by cascaillou on Sun Oct 04, 2020 4:48 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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 Post subject: Re: Demons and wonders...of the mineral world
PostPosted: Sun Oct 04, 2020 11:29 am 
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Ohhhh !

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