Bearded Geology

Just recently, I found out that The Royal Mint of the United Kingdom is releasing three versions of a newly designed 50 pence coin. These coins celebrate the grandmother of paleontology, Mary Anning. Coincidentally, Anning is the focus of a new film, "Ammonite" also (full disclosure: I've yet to see the film, but it seems to be loosely based on Anning's life, much of which is unknown to us today, particularly her romantic life). These coins bear the illustrations of an two marine reptiles, a Plesiosaurus and an icthyosaur called Temnodontosaurus, and a flying reptile called Dimorphodon. All three lived during the Jurassic Period and were discovered by Anning in the early 1800s. The Royal Mint even offers color imbued and gold versions of these coins for a higher price. After finding out about the Mary Anning coins, I immediately found out that The Royal Mint had also produced three versions of the 50 pence coin featuring dinosaurs in 2019! I immediately opened my wall

Although the pandemic left me at home for much of the year, I haven't posted much throughout this year. But, I have recently been working on two ongoing projects that I've added to the blog and are accessible at the top of the home page via the new "Projects" link. These are the World's Largest Crystals and the World's Largest Gemstones . Two databases of the largest known crystals and gems.  I've long been wanting to work on an update to Peter Rickwood's 1981 publication, The Largest Crystals , in which Rickwood painstakingly compiles information about the world's largest known crystals using sources such as eyewitness testimonies and 19th century publications. The introduction to Rickwood's paper is a great starting point to understand what the largest crystals are, how we can define them, and what complications can arise in determining them as the largest. Most of the minerals that he describes are included in the World's Largest Crysta

In 1857, twenty-one years after Arkansas gained statehood, the Arkansas legislature approved funding for the first geological survey of the state. Governor Elias N. Conway commissioned Dr. David Dale Owen to lead the survey beginning in 1857 to 1859 with funds of $4,800 per year, plus a salary of $1,800, and continuing from 1859 to 1860 with $6,000 per year, plus $2,500 salary. Owen was no stranger to government surveys; he also served as the State Geologist of Indiana (1837-1838) and Kentucky (1854-1857), as well as a geologist for the U.S. Government on a survey of Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and parts of Illinois and Nebraska (1839-1840, 1847-1850). David Dale Owen (image credit: Smithsonian Archives/ Wikimedia ) Owen commenced the Arkansas survey in Greene County with laboratory and field assistance of William Elderhorst - professor of chemistry and mineralogy at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Edward T. Cox - who later would be State Geologist of Indiana, Robert Pete