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God sleeps in the minerals

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Re: God sleeps in the minerals

#101

Post by windsurfer »

bregma wrote: post #61
alnwlsn wrote: post #53

I've been to a few mineral museums like this and one of the interesting ones you can come across is Asbestos. Just hanging out there on display right next to some other mineral. It forms beautiful formations just like the rest, but I've heard so many mesothelioma lawyer commercials that it's easy to forget it's a completely natural material. Also one you can pick apart like cotton and weave into a fabric - it's a fle…

We used to have asbestos rocks sitting around in our house when I was growing up (my mother was born a raised in the town formerly called Asbestos, QC). You could just peel the fibers off the rock. In that form the asbestos is harmless: it's only when it's chopped into shorter fibers and inhaled that it's seriously unhealthy. Industrial uses almost always chopped the fibers so almost no commercial products using asbe…

> All types of asbestos fibers are known to represent serious health hazards in humans and animals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Health_impact

Re: God sleeps in the minerals

#103

Post by [deleted] »

windsurfer wrote: post #101
bregma wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to have asbestos rocks sitting around in our house when I was growing up (my mother was born a raised in the town formerly called Asbestos, QC). You could just peel the fibers off the rock. In that form the asbestos is harmless: it's only when it's chopped into shorter fibers and inhaled that it's seriously unhealthy. Industrial uses almost always chopped the fibers so almost no commercial products using asbe…

> All types of asbestos fibers are known to represent serious health hazards in humans and animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Health_impact

[deleted]

Re: God sleeps in the minerals

#104

Post by gyomu »

chromacity wrote: post #62
throwup238 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s what really sucks about rockhounding as a hobby. In the US we have a blessing of public BLM lands where we can collect, especially in the West, but most of the interesting specimens in museums and fancy collections come from mines or some unique geological occurrence on private land. Getting them requires dropping lots of money or getting into commercial mining. The best most of us can really hope for is some…

> There are a few species you can sometimes find in washes when they get buried during massive floods, but other than that most museum quality specimens are impossible to find for rockhounds. Well, that's kinda how it has to be, right? If art museums displayed the artwork anyone can paint, they wouldn't be interesting to most people. Most museums are about displaying the stuff you otherwise wouldn't be able to find,…

> If art museums displayed the artwork anyone can paint, they wouldn't be interesting to most people.

It's very common for art museums in Japan to have a room dedicated to paintings from local residents. As one would expect, the quality ranges from "why would you show this to anyone" to "can't believe how amazing this is". I always enjoy going through them.

Re: God sleeps in the minerals

#106

Post by jatora »

windsurfer wrote: post #101
bregma wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We used to have asbestos rocks sitting around in our house when I was growing up (my mother was born a raised in the town formerly called Asbestos, QC). You could just peel the fibers off the rock. In that form the asbestos is harmless: it's only when it's chopped into shorter fibers and inhaled that it's seriously unhealthy. Industrial uses almost always chopped the fibers so almost no commercial products using asbe…

> All types of asbestos fibers are known to represent serious health hazards in humans and animals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asbestos#Health_impact

RIP

Re: God sleeps in the minerals

#110

Post by tim333 »

I've found these more interesting since reading The Mysterious, Deep-Dwelling Microbes That Sculpt Our Planet in the nyt. You don't get that kind of thing on asteroids or Venus, they are mostly produced as a side effect of microbes in the earth's crust that predate most surface life.

It's an interesting question if we'll find them and or simple life in the crust of Mars. Idelwords has some discussion of that https://idlewords.com/2023/1/why_not_mars.htm

I find it somewhat reassuring that even if we raze the plant through nuclear war or climate change, the crust microbes will be just fine and regenerate new surface life a while after.

(nyt article https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/24/magazine/earth-geomicrobi... or https://archive.ph/VgzKD)

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