'Exporting' a few chips of rock internationally enforces capitalist values on matter that couldn't care less in awkward ways.

DE customs want invoices to prove what I've picked up from #MineWaste is worth (for a gift) so they can tax it.

The fact it's arsenopyrite is probably not an issue but - "Arsenic is a critical mineral and used in numerous industrial products including gallium-arsenic semiconductors for use in cell phones, solar panels, telecommunications, aerospace research and light emitting diodes (LEDs)"

#OrganisedAtoms

Not one of mine, but a photo I made of a friend's specimen - amazing spherical #Hematite ("kidney ore") inclusions in water clear quartz. Some of the metallic spheres are split, so you can see how they grew from a tiny dark red core. Found in #MineWaste at Botallack mine, #Cornwall.

mindat.org minID: H3M-LEY

#OrganisedAtoms

Recently I've been making better images of specimens I found previously - this is a pair of complex #Cuprite crystals from #MineWaste at Wheal Unity, Gwennap I found in a 20 minute visit in 2023 checking sites for #OrganisedAtoms workshops (I should check it out again, found some amazing things here and somehow never returned). They have a thin coating of #Chrysocolla which gives them a hint of blue.

I'm still using the same cheap USB microscope, but I learned how to use Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/) better to make large resolution images. This is a composite image of 9 focus stacked images - each comprised of 10 to 20 images at different focal depths.

Squarish, tabular #Cerussite scattered across an orange matrix, surrounded by exposed #Galena with typical right angled breakage planes.

#Fossicked from #MineWaste at Wheal Clinton, Flushing, #Cornwall. Found below the high tide level, beneath the main shaft of an old lead/silver mine (now in a rich person's enormous garden overlooking the sea).

Some of the galena is tarnished blue indicating it has a high silver content (~3% according to historical records).

#OrganisedAtoms

New research for Royal Society of Chemistry funded Organised Atoms workshops, using mine waste crystals in electronics.

This is a new design we've made for a synthesiser, it's a light controlled oscillator that uses a natural pyrite crystal (from Wheal Unity Wood mine, in Cornwall) to output sounds that change as you move tiny 'cats whisker' wires to different places on the crystal surface.

#Fossicking #Chemistry #Electronics #PublicEngagement #ThenTryThis #Geology #MineWaste

Daphnite, a type of Chamosite - #Fossicked from #MineWaste at Carharrack Mine, #Cornwall

First thing I've found that seems to be quite rare... Hexagonal stacks of deep green crystals, protected by a thick layer of fine clay, ultrasonically scrubbed clean.

I like noticing how as people get experience in any scientific field unintuitively they become more uncertain. Confusion on mindat.org as to whether this is arsenopyrite or pyrite. I was ~confident it was tetrahedrite, I'm pretty terrible at this still. I can't stop photographing these crazy shapes though.

As yet unidentified crystals #Fossicked from #MineWaste at Carharrack Mine, Gwennap #Cornwall. The gold is a coating of chalcopyrite that easily flakes off if you prod at it with a pin.