Helen's post in the other thread gave me an idea: we could label ourselves as whatever kind of mineral, gemstone, or jewel we think we are, and say why. Stales, I'd be particularly interested in yours; yours and our beloved Chief's (hint!). Duplicates will be fine, because the reasons won't be the same.
I'll start, by saying that I am like mica--and no, I am not a flake! I am fairly easy to see through; not especially hard; and I lose pieces of myself very readily, some of which are taken away with great care, and some of which are dropped on the hard, cold ground.

This reminds me of a Christmas present my daughter gave me a few years ago. My son asked her what she was giving me and she replied "A box of rocks." to which my son said "I get it. They're to replace the ones that have fallen out of her head!" Actually, they were very nice geode bookends.
I would say opal best describes me. The white ones. Can't see through them, but you know what they are. Sometimes I flash in blues and greens, sometimes in reds and pinks. I am soft, I need to be kept well-oiled and can get crazed if I don't take care!

Grate idea Jackie!

I'd be many diffrant things at diffrant times but always like the mineral Coca-Cola cos I'm the REAL THING.

Mind ya, Goldilocks always sez that I'm like a pebble in her shoe - whatever that means.

thinking, thinking, thinking .....

stales

I'm a pearl. I'm very beautiful but I got something in me that irritates the heck out of someone.

I'm a ruby: "They say, Ruby you're like a flame, into my heart you came...."

(Rhuby: Don't mean to rain on your parade! I just love the song....)

Best regards,
WildFire

OK - it was going to be either Fluorite or Quartz for many of the same reasons - but I've settled on Quartz.

And the reasons...

Above all, Quartz is simple and common. (I tend towards VERY common when I've been around drillers for too long!)

Quartz is hard (7 on Moh's scale) but brittle. It can thus be scratched by harder minerals but, strike it hard and it will fracture.

When fractured, Quartz displays a complex pattern on its surface.

Quartz dsiplays triboluminescence - that is, it sparks orange or yellow when struck.

It is a popular mineral and has a variety of uses. To some it is a gem, to others it finds use as a semi precious stone and to yet others, it is useful in industrial applications. Very few people however have little use for it.

Although presenting itself in one seemingly simple form (hexagonal), in actual fact Quartz's crystal structure is extremely complicated.

Whilst it has a variety of forms and colours, Quartz is generally transparent. A good honest sort of mineral you could say.

stales

Ooh Jackie, if you are a caver, (I am) talk about rocks makes you feel romantic and makes you want to burst out in song...
Big Joe Turner, Rocks in my Bed, 1953.
"...I'm underloved, I'm overfed, my gals gone, so instead, I got Rocks in my bed."
Note to Ruby: Don't take your love to town.
Note to Pearl: Yes, you are beautiful and the fact that you know it irritates us all.
Me: I am one of the two incarnations of limestone; Either limestone that has metamorphisized into the purest form of desirable marble, or limestone that has weathered into the basest of materials- Chert, which rymes with dirt, that stands for...Pool?
NO WAIT! I got carried away. Put me down for "Helictite" Yes, thats me, a helictite.

Pipestone:

When you first pull me out of the ground you can easily make a pipe out of me but after being exposed to the air for a while I become difficult to carve.

thank you jackie-- another thing about Mica-- one variety is called issenglass-- and used to make "window's" on franklin stoves.. Mica is a good fire wall.. Lets throught the warms, but keeps the flames at bay.. you are one of the warmest people here, so there is an other way that you are like mica. Mica can take a lot of heat.. and still be okay, and mica tempers hot flames, but let through the warmth!

diamonds are good for me, since i can be very hard-- and diamonds can sparkle, even when they are flawed..(and diamonds are often flawed) i have some surprizing attributes too, diamond fluoresce.. (change color when exposed to different frequencies of light.) in ordinary light, i might seem clear, or almost clear.. but under special lighting, i can be orange.. or blue! I am not always what you expect... I can be lowly grit, and not much more than an tool for shaping things. or i can be a precious jewel!

Iolite to take a few minutes to try to figure out if mineral alike, like my wife claims.

I'm not so sure. Some people do take me for granite, but deep down I'm a pretty gneiss guy. Overly talcative at times, but azuritely expect I usually just let my honrblende with others especially if I can make the ptichblende.

When I'm wrong I'm wrong, but I rutile I find the right answer most of the time. Other times I'll lapse into jargoon and let people marble at the things I chalk up to my apatite for words. Its aplite that cvould be boron for some people but it will garnet sympathy from others.

I drive an opel but I used to have a morganite that I was adamant about so much it would basalt in other people's wounds. Sometimes I get wacke and people think I go tufa, but I'm hardly ever obsidian, risque yes, but obsidian hardly ever.

I own a whole collection of Petrarchs, including a rare set that I inherited from William Penn, who got them from his maiden aunts. Yup, the pyrites of Penn's aunts.

My brother peat helped me memorize the whole Coal Nidre for Yom Kippur once so I'd be in like flint with my Jewish girlfriend but I muffed it so badly I thought I'd diorite on the spot. Cruel and unusual pumicement is the way she put it. I kunzite parts of it to this day though I sapphire in her eyes at the time. I did conclude that I should eschew the Hebrew religion in favor of more oriental traditions, because they have topaz to enlightenment. This is almost more than I can beryl so I'll stop now, unless you want me to coral a few more.

I'm off to the pool where I can swim lapis lazuli.

Ted, you've got rocks in your head! And they are gems!

Faldage:

Are your pipelines for oil or water? Or perhaps for smoke?

WordWondering...

I would like to believe I have flint within me. One could do worse. per Christina Rossetti:
An emerald is as green as grass;
A ruby red as blood;
A sapphire shines as blue as heaven;
A flint lies in the mud.

A diamond is a brilliant stone,
To catch the world's desire;
An opal holds a firey spark;
But a flint holds fire.

Ted! Oh, Ted! Thank you! I love you! That is the most wonderful post we've had in ages!

Maxie, you didn't say why you are like osmium, Sweetie.

I'll stick with my birthstone : amethyst.
Atomica : "It has superstitious associations, being regarded as a love charm, a sleeping aid, and a guard against thieves and drunkenness"
Also, according to my little booklet on gemstones, a protection against poison and emblematic of courage.
I can live with that!

Are your pipelines for oil or water?

Actually®, onliest thang I ever made out of pipestone was a neckerchief slide.

Actually®, onliest thang I ever made out of pipestone was a neckerchief slide.

Oh, come on! Gas as well, surely? Well, hot air anyway!

pipestone

The eastern Ohio Boy Scout council has an esteemed summer camp award named Pipestone. During the week one has to complete certain ecology, swimming, service and leadership requirements. At the end of the week if one meets the requirements there is a guardedly secret award ceremony in which one receives a stone made of pipestone. There are five years of the program and each year one returns the previous stone and gets a new one with an additional specific carving on it. The five images are a man (native american) holding a stave above his head, a fire, a teepee, a flower and an arrowhead.

Apparently the only pipestone quarry in the country is in Minnesota or Wisconin, can't remember which.

Jazz, there's a lot about pipestone mining in both Minnesota and Wisconsin on Google. I tried searching "Virginia pipestone," but only saw one link that was dubious in nature. Also, I tried "Michigan pipestone," but there was just a family history story too long to download and a Pipestone Shopping Center or Mall...

Dub

Pipestone artifacts have been recovered from numerous sites throughout the upper Midwest and eastern Plains. Geologic sources and glacial deposits of this argillite have distributions almost equally broad. Artifacts from a historic component and several prehistoric sites in the upper Mississippi River valley have been analyzed through X-ray powder diffractometry and compared to pipestones from geological sources. Similarity in mineral composition indicates that nearly all the artifacts are catlinite from southwestern Minnesota. None are manufactured from the more readily available Wisconsin pipestones. Catlinites
are not present on sites that predate AD 1260, indicating that trade or transport of this exotic pipestone in to the Upper Mississippi Valley began late in the thirteenth century. Frequency comparison of pipestones from various sites indicates an increased use of this exotic material AD 1550 to 1650 and a dramatic rise during the historic period.

Coprolite Must be, 'cuz kids keep saying "That old fossil's got s**t for brains."

Pipestone

I am the proud owner of the world's largest collection of pipestone. I am likely the world's only collector of pipestone. No not the stuff that you can make smoking pipes out of, I mean real pipes. Picture a 5" diameter iron pipe, about three feet long. (my best piece) These naturally occurring pipes are only found near West Blocton, Alabama in quaternary alluvial deposits of sandy clay. No one I know knows how they were formed. The best guess is that they are the casts of tree roots. (unlikely). If any of you all have any ideas or know of any other examples, please let me know.

Jackie, Dumb, dumb, dumb. Me, the pipestone king; Can I change my image stone from a helictite to a pipestone?
Thank you,
Milum.

Ted, I am enthralled with your rampant pundemonium! Loved it! But I must confess to a moment of groan...the pyrites of Penn's aunts (ouch!)

My Dearest milum,

You may change your image to anything you like.
Your pipestone sounds fascinating! Have geologists looked at it? My first guess would be that it is fossilized bone. My next guess is that it is sedimentary rock that was formed around something--like a bone--that held up at the time, but later disintegrated; possibly a fossilized, or partially-fossilized, bone. Just within the limits of believability: the layer of rock was not quite hardened, yet sufficiently firm to hold its shape, when some animal/worm/snake tunneled through it.
If you know of any geologists who have studied this--maybe from a local university?--I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know. I'd like to see if they've published anything on it.

Dear Ted

BRILLIANT and very funny post. Sat here going, "Lahar, Lahar" out loud with mirth.

I love the lustre of your writing and your strengite adherance to this theme. It's a pleasure to know you are such a zeolite, such aphanitic, about the use of words. I wish I could bismuth as you!

Interesting to hear about the pyrites of Penn's aunts - I haven't met them yet, so you could say arsenopyrites. Wasn't one of their relations zircon, the greek tycoon from Heliodor? Weren't zirconias giving him problems? Funny how he's gone antimony in his old age - how can he turn his back on all that prosperite?

Opel!! Morganite!! Boy, you need your head read. Now, a Holden - that's a realgar!

I heard that Malcolm was cummingtonite to your place. Are you intending to make malachite dunnite? I remember the last time he came over - that was an amazonite. And what about his belovite sisters Celestine and Ann? Celestine is very much "legrandite dame" don't you think? And everybody says Anatase - a real temptress with quite an apatite for .... You'd be agate at the rumours about her but I reckon they're all false. Arsenic up on her the other night but couldn't copper doing anything - she saw me and was gone in a moh. By the way, don't bother with her homepage either - that's a banalsite if ever I saw one. Diopside of it all is at least her boyfriend (Epi)dotes on her and, if she does have a secret, he won't descloizite. Don't know why he left his last girlfriend, Lena. She's quite some galena.

Don't forget to check your sulfur flowers tomorrow - they should be buddingtonite.

I'll be back in touch soon,

Regards

stales

PS I resent the accusations that I damaged your book - you know I wouldn't harmotome.

hot air anyway!

Aw, c'mon, CapK. You know I can make hot air out of bout anythang.

Give my love to SWMBO

Rocks in my "new" labels, apparently: stales, until a friend mentioned your post today, I hadn't even seen yours--and here I said I would specially watch for it. Didn't see several surrounding it till just now, either. Thank you. Very nice, Sweetie--d'you know, I had a hard time deciding between quartz and mica, on account of what you say in your last two sentences.

Well, now, milum--you posted, - Chert, which rymes with dirt, that stands for...Pool? I like that, but for you, I think I might change it to "Chert, which rhymes with dirt, and that stands for trouble..." And, it just so happens that I like chert.

Stales:

Your sense of humus is something else, particularly when you have a buhr under your saddle. Keeps you aventurine instead of sitting, I expect. I'll granulite puns as much as I do but as geode is my witness I won't take a loess sitting down, only till I'm able to stand up and compost another note here, even if it means resorting to amphibole. But asphalt is not something we cast here perhaps we can tripoli stakes without becoming sardonyx about it.

Mercuryiosity is getting the better of me, so I'll find the grit to ask you straight up: do you want to diabase death or pinchbeck a little bit on your lithium? Why are uranium on MY parade, particularly when you have the potassium turgite yourself out of this mispickel?

I orthoclase this now, but I feel olivine you a clear feldspartner.

Maltha force be with you! Or you can cesium the day yourself while your citrine here pondering a response.

Ted, your demantoid friend

Ted, opal o' mine

Whilst you may cinnabar to this thread continuing, I'm afraid I feel an epoch ending. To be frank, you have lead the race from the start and arsenolite for stales at the end of the tunnel. I feel orthoclase to calling it quits - you've won the nickel.

Illite to say however, your posts stilbite, they are pure gold and obviously the product of a very erdite person. They float like ice upon the water of my hackley attempts. You take punning to alluvial that's not been seen before and seen fit to liberite this poor writer's creative juices from their previous minium.

Ironic as it may seem, uvite to call yourself the master of geological threads - and you're not even a geologist! Nobody would dare call you a pussy - you're nepheline.

I fervanite hope that this is not to be continued but natron would understand it if you felt forsterite.

I am now jaded and would like to call a holtite here. I'm that tired I don't even have the energy to fornacite.

Good niter

stales