Geology Science Communication

GeoSciTweeps is a rocur (rotation curation) Twitter account where a geologist takes over for one week to talk about what they do. It was created almost a year ago by Sandhya Ramesh. One month ago (27th February – 5th May) I had the chance to host this account.

My topics included what it’s like to be an undergraduate geology student, my independent research project on stromatolites, minerals, fossils, thin sections and fieldwork. If you would like to view my week of tweets, the storify is available here.

Hosting GeoSciTweeps is an amazing science communication opportunity and I strongly recommend it. If you would like to take part, you can fill out the sign up form here.

 

Namesake Minerals #12

Another high pressure quartz polymorph features in today’s post, but this one is even more extreme than coesite. Stishovite has a similar history to coesite – it was first created in the laboratory and a natural occurrence was discovered soon after.

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Stishovite (black) in the Muonionalusta Meteorite (image from mindat.com)

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#AreYouSiO2

On Twitter, there are several ‘hashtag games’ where someone tweets a picture and others have to guess what it is. I’ve played quite a few of these games, such as #NameThatTrack by @LisaVipes and #CougarOrNot by @drmichellelarue, but as far as I could see, there were no geology based games.

I decided to create a geology themed game called #AreYouSiO2. Every Monday, I tweet a picture of a mineral at 14:00 GMT and players have until 21:00 GMT to guess whether it’s a variety of quartz (SiO2). Players get bonus points if they can name the variety.

#AreYouSiO2 is still in its infancy – there have only been two rounds so far – but I hope that people will enjoy seeing the wide range of quartz varieties. Make sure you don’t miss the next round this Monday!

(Title image is quartz with some pyrite, accession number 8A:1(109), from the University College London Geology Collections)

Namesake Minerals #11

Today’s mineral is formed under intense heat and pressure – quite apt considering what’s been going on in the world lately!

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Coesite eclogite from Norway (red = garnet, green = omphacite). This contains minute crystals of coesite which cannot be seen by the naked eye (image by Carl Hoiland from travelinggeologist.com)

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Namesake Minerals #10

Happy New Year everyone! 2017 is finally here as well as the return of fortnightly namesake minerals posts! It’s been quite a while since the last post so today you’ll be treated to three minerals named after famous petrographers.

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