Round 1 Match 4: Lovely peacock ore bornite gets arts points as a source of copper, but so is rare carrollite, which is also a source of cobalt… and cobalt is important for pigments including cobalt violet, cobalt yellow, cobalt titanite green, and of course, cobalt blue.
#OreCup
Cobalt blue can be prepared by heating a mixture of cobalt (II)-chloride CoCl2 · 6H2O and aluminum oxide Al2O3.
Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/vote-results/results-r1m4
Voting for minerals is back this week with the new #OreCup! I am taking my art and physics applications voting scheme from the #MinCup25, but the #OreCup25 is making it hard pitting 2 strong contenders against each other in the first round! Found worldwide Copper & Galena have been used since antiquity (see the woodcut of early Galena smelting via Agricola here). Both used for pigments (as with the copper-based verdigris used in this Van Eyck).
Happy birthday to #mathematician & geodesist Gladys West (née Brown 1930)! Shown with 3 satellites important to her career + tracks: Seasat, GEOS-3 & a GPS satellite. Her work, using math to precisely model the shape of Earth, laid the groundwork for GPS! Born to sharecropper parents in Virginia, she graduated with a Math BSc in ‘52 then MSc at VSU in ‘55. She started her career at 🧵
#spacetober_challenge Earth
#linocut #printmaking #womenInSTEM #BlackInSTEM #histsci #EarthSci #Math #mastoArt
While blue kyanite is used in jewelry, porcelain & pottery glazes, plus gets physics points as an index mineral, it’s the extraordinary ‘reindeer blood’ tenebrescent, & phosphorescent tugtupite “King of Fluorescent Minerals” which is also a gem, gaining both art and physics points for me. #MinCup25
Vote tugtupite in the Mineral Cup 2025 finale here:
A tough call for the #MinCup25 semi-final but I think I have to give dioptase the arts vote as a pigment since ancient times (i.e. on Neolithic sculpture, Asian murals & Russian icons), though ‘reindeer blood’ tenebrescent, & phosphorescent, tugtupite “King of Fluorescent Minerals” is also a gem, gaining both art and physics points from me.
Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r4m02
Cuprosklodowskite was mistakenly named for sklodowskite, in turn named for Marie Skłodowska-Curie. Dioptase has been used as a pigment since ancient times. You find it on Neolithic sculpture. Asian murals & Russian religious icons. It’s also used in jewellery. Dioptase wins the arts vote!
#MinCup25
Vote for #dioptase here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3m04
Look “space green” kosmochlor may be of meteorite origin and occasionally carved as it’s associated with jadeite, but blue kyanite definitely gets the arts vote for jewelry and use in porcelain and pottery glazes. Plus is gets physics points as an index mineral. #MinCup25
Vote for kyanite here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3m03
I’ll grant that it’s cool that “Borg cube” perovskite could be formed in a Brown Dwarf but I’m voting for reindeer blood tugtupite “King of Fluorescent Minerals,” which is tenebrescent (changes colour in UV) & phosphorescent so gains my physics vote plus it’s also a gem on the arts front #MinCup25
(Also: revenge for stibnite and calcite!)
Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3m02
Haüyne, formed in magma chambers, is pretty, blue & can fluoresce. But electrically conductive iron-ore hematite is an absolute giant of art history, used as red ochre, going back at least 164,000 years to Pinnacle Point Caves! Also called Venetian, mars or English red.
Vote hematite! #MinCup25
Vote here: https://www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3m01
While iron-nickel alloy taenite gets physics points for its meteorite origin, magnetism & Widmanstätten patterns kyanite gets physics points as an index mineral.
Plus lovely blue kyanite definitely gets the arts vote for jewelry and use in porcelain and pottery glazes. #MinCup25
Ele Willoughby, PhD