📢 Lichen people!
What's the name for this thing, where arcute lichens grow out/across a rock surface apparently eating other lichen/biofilm stuff away and leaving much barer rock behind?
Are there any refs on this? I don't know what to look for? 🤓 😟 🙏
It's common with various lichens in Scotland, but especially yellow ones just above HWM on rocky coasts. More info on pic in Alt-txt.
How old is a rock can be an extremely complicated question! 🤓 😱
This is great (open access) paper using a wide range of techniques to examine the ways measured radiometric dates on mineral grains may reflect or hide small-scale rock processes rather than big events.
Probably for enthusiasts only, although there are nice pictures! 🤣
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00410-026-02344-7
#MinCup2026 More wonderful quartz: the delicate tint and fine lustre of the smoky quartz from the mountains north of Killin makes for superb gemstones. These are in the collections of the Hunterian Museum, in Glasgow...
Vote here (for quartz obviously!):
#MinCup26 It's the time for QUARTZ! A speciality of our planet in a mostly quartz-free cosmos.
This mineral can do anything: a gem in lots of colours, a geothermometer, geological strain gauge, a trap for geofluid samples, and much more.
Here is a beautiful stormy seascape in this cut and polished Scottish agate - all due to the microtextural subtlety and complexity of quartz.
I'm looking to hire a project manager!
I'm working on a project with materials scientists and physicists to build stacked quantum heterostructures, which have potential interesting properties as semiconductors, etc. It's a crazy process that involves crystal growers, driving microscopes with an Xbox controller, a adiabatic demagnetization refrigerators, and exfoliation with scotch tape. We need a project manager to help us ... well, manage the project.
Apply at:
https://utah.peopleadmin.com/postings/209788
Fine to ask me questions here or at ricci at cs dot utah.edu
Very mild and dry, but with very strong SE wind in Mull today... the basalt cliffs of Gribun were looking good this afternoon 😊 #Mull
On the beach this morning, I was pondering limpets, and decided I needed to know more.
I've just found this, and now you all need to know this too 😊
https://thelimpetdoctrine.substack.com/p/a-natural-history-of-limpets-part
@eclectech @MiaMarkTwo Behold!!!
🤩😊🤩
@MineralCup #MinCup26 Cuprite is 🤩 🥰 - just browse these fabulous crystals from the Clara Mine in Germany 😋
https://www.mindat.org/gallery.php?loc=1782&min=1172&checkall=2
This is a really nice clear piece on identifying dubious/fake data:
https://datacolada.substack.com/p/138-artificial-deadlines-part-1-evidence
Cheers to the great Dolly Parton 😢 As well as all sorts of country, her bluegrass singing was fabulous. This is one of my favourites:
Nice evening out in boat. A lot of dolphins around 🐬 , but I failed to get any decent photos apart from this one ☹️ 😊 #Mull
No trace of any heatwaves in Mull at the moment. Here's the Scottish Highlands mountain weather forecast for the end of the week 😂 #ScottishSummer #MonTheSnaw
The dinghy is mine, built by my grandfather in 1927. The wee yacht is the "Little Kingfisher" built in 1926. Found info on her here:
http://www.harrisonbutlerassociation.com/PhotoArchive/LittleKingfisher/Article0006.html
Lovely to meet one of my favourite shells actually alive today : two wee Tortoiseshell Limpets (Testudinalia testudinalis) living in this old Mya shell in Loch na Lathaich in Mull. I'e only ever seen their wee empty shells on beaches before (very rarely). Obv. I put them back in the sea after this photo 😊 🥰 #SeaShells #Mull #Limpets #Mollusca
The two boats in this picture are 99 (left) and 100 (right) years old. This isn't a vintage boat gathering - just two good wooden boats meeting up by chance off Mull today... 😊 😊 😊
Some beautiful fluorescence under 365nm UV light in these Gibbula cinereria (top; aka Grey Topshells), Trivia monacha (centre; aka European cowrie) and Trivia arctica (bottom; aka Arctic cowrie) found on a beach in Iona today . What are these creatures doing with fluorescence in their daily lives? 🤔 #Seashells #Mollusca #Mull #Iona
@dantheclamman
Ps this phenomenon was first discovered by Alex Comfort ( #JoyOfSex ) in the 1940s...
Some of the lovely people having a lovely time at today's #PebblePicnic event on Iona. As usual, people managed to find things I've never seen before. Today's winner in "most geologically interesting" category : wee anorthosite pebble, with tiny blebs of sulfide minerals and copper staining. 🤓
It was the yearly #BunessanShow on Friday. It was fantastic, but I forgot to put an SD card in my camera, so found that I had taken no pictures 🤯 🤡 , part from a couple on my phone. 😭
So here's the Industrial and Horticultural tent, with all the fruits, vegetables,compost, baking, jams, cakes, art etc. And the winning cake in the "Novelty Cake" category. This year's theme "My Hobby". 🤣 🤩
This is an interesting and spectacular account of unusual salt stalactites and stalagmites in an cave in Western Australia (#OpenAccess):
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geomorph.2026.110444
I particularly like the occurrence of the amazingly rare 🤩 calcium iodate🤩 mineral lautarite in these mineral assemblages 🕺 💃
