📢 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.
Swarms of wee yellow periwinkles out on the low spring tide seaweed at Uisken this morning. 😊 🤩 😊
Almost all the live ones on exposed seaweed were bright yellow, but the empty shells on the beach have a huge range of colours. Maybe the darker ones live in deeper water?
🤔
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.
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
Stately Spanish galleon in Tobermory harbour today! 438 years after another Spanish galleon blew up and sank here...
#Mull
#ThinSectionThursday Here a lovely wee cross-twinned plagioclase feldspar phenocryst in 60-million-year old basalt from near Ben More on Mull.
The three images each use different polarized light techniques: PPL, XP, and XP +plus sensistive tint plate. The vfeild of view is about 2mm wide. More info in Alt txt
Cheers to the great Dolly Parton 😢 As well as all sorts of country, her bluegrass singing was fabulous. This is one of my favourites:
I just rediscovered these fabulous instructions from the user-guide to my old (now defunct) heat pump unit. 🥰 🤣
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
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... 😊 😊 😊
🍄 There's a mushroom that makes people see tiny people. The same tiny people, every time.
Lanmaoa asiatica is a bolete sold as a delicacy in Yunnan, China and the northern Philippines. Cooked thoroughly, it's a savory umami-rich food. Eaten raw or undercooked, it reliably triggers Lilliputian hallucinations, visions of tiny elf-like figures marching under doors and crawling up walls.
Classic psychedelics give everyone a different trip. This mushroom gives basically everyone the same one. University of Utah researchers sequenced it and found no known psychoactive compound at all, no psilocybin, no ibotenic acid. It points to a completely new hallucinogenic chemical.
The trips start 12 to 24 hours after eating and can last up to a week. Nobody uses it recreationally. Hot pot restaurants just set a 15-minute timer and warn you not to eat until it goes off.
Read more:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanmaoa_asiatica
https://attheu.utah.edu/facultystaff/scientists-identify-mushroom-behind-tiny-people-hallucinations/
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20260121-the-mysterious-mushroom-that-makes-you-see-tiny-people
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...
