#pseudomorph
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vickyveritas.bsky.social
1/3 Well this is a first (for me): Native #copper replaces ancient cross-bedded sedimentary rock perfectly preserving the original cross-bedding. Copper does amazing stuff in Michigan. 🤯 More below! Pinging @richardgibson.bsky.social

#OreCup ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology 🍎 🔭🪐
Lustrous wavy copper stripes this museum specimen of a copper pseudomorph where copper has replaced the original sedimentary bedding. From: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Native_copper-replaced_cross-bedded_sedimentary_rocks_%28Nonesuch_Shale,_Mesoproterozoic;_White_Pine_Mine,_Upper_Peninsula_of_Michigan,_USA%29_1_%2817110279879%29.jpg
November 10, 2025 at 2:59 PM
richardgibson.bsky.social
#MineralMonday #Copper pseudomorph after pseudohexagonal aragonite twin, Corocoro, Bolivia. ⚒️ #geology . No MAGA! Science = Resistance! #standupforscience
November 3, 2025 at 3:25 PM
elysiamacht.bsky.social
You wanna see dioptase do something else that's cool?

We haven't much had geode or "hummocky" samples yet, but how weird-cool is that, too? Other things dissolve, only dioptase is left.

Please vote!
www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote/r3...

#Dioptase #MinCup25 #Cuprosklodowskite
Text below from the irocks site. About 12-14 small "cup" hollows or indentations on a shimmering glittering dioptase piece. From N'tola Mine, Mindouli, Pool Department, Republic of the Congo. "This is an absolutely dazzling and gorgeous small cabinet specimen of Dioptase from new finds (2018-2019) at the copper mines of Mindouli in the Republic of the Congo (former French Congo and not to be confused the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo). It is a sculptural Dioptase small cabinet piece featuring a hummocky surface just covered in sparkling, sugary, dark emerald-green Dioptase crystals to 2 mm! The brilliant luster of the Dioptase makes them scintillate with any amount of ambient lighting at any orientation! A captivating piece that can be displayed in a few orientations! Interestingly, this seemed to form as a cast, perhaps over "bubbles" or aragonite or calcite that later dissolved away. This was a unique find in the history of dioptase, and they are really stand out objects on a shelf. This is the last of the few smaller sized good specimens we got from the find. Many of them sadly did not make it to the mineral market, but were cut into small pieces for lapidary use and sold by the gram as sparkly jewels for wire wrap and mounted settings in jewelry." Dioptase necklace pendant, or a geode in deep forest green or vivid, deep sea green turquoise, with a deeper green inside it. Raw crystal. It's set on a black something holding it, ready for hanging. 1stdibs site. A geode style piece that seems to be standing up or is upright, opening toward the left here. A round pool shaped lighter rim around the darker indented middle, as the look is with these things. The Evil Queen's mirror style look, but all a glittering green gemstone. Dioptase pseudomorph after Shattuckite(?) from Mindouli, Pool Department, Republic of Congo. "Sparkling hemispherical formation of lustrous transparent green dioptase crystals with no attached matrix. Apparently the dioptase crystallized over a spherical shattuckite formation that dissolved away. Collected in 2019." From the Johnbetts-fineminerals . com site.
September 28, 2025 at 7:49 PM
saavikford.bsky.social
#Ikaite, which is a pseudomorph of #Calcite is my (belated) pick for this round!!

Vote calcite (indirectly), vote #Ikaite!!!

#MinCup25
September 14, 2025 at 4:45 PM
allochthonous.bsky.social
But I think the coolest example I've found is ikaite pseudomorphs within metamorphosed Dalradian rocks in Scotland, where they appear to have grown *after* an episode of burial and metamorphism that generated a slatey cleavage.

pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsl/jgs/arti...

#MinCup25
Series of images from a scientific paper, with the caption: Kerrera Slates. A: Bed of metadolostone with aligned ikaite pseudomorphs plunging (lower arrow) in the plane of the cleavage towards the NE, crenulation lineation in the slates is marked by upper arrow (Coin is 2 cm diameter); B: Aligned ikaite pseudomorphs in calcareous slate steeply plunging (arrow) to the NE. Pseudomorph size decreases towards lower part of exposure (Hand lens is 5 cm long); C: Aligned ikaite pseudomorphs in calcareous slates, arrow shows alignment of elongate grains (Hand lens for scale); D and E: Large elongate ikaite pseudomorphs with pyramidal terminations from the Easdale Slates.
September 14, 2025 at 1:54 PM
blastylavagrrrl.bsky.social
If you cut down an active ikaite column, the pipeline of groundwater will forcefully continue rising toward the surface, and begin to rebuild ikaite immediately.
It makes pretty opal!
#MinCup25
www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/12...
www.gia.edu/gems-gemolog...
www.researchgate.net/figure/One-g...
Text from https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/12/11/1430 reads: "fjord, the sedimentary cover of the floor of the fjord is relatively thin and permeable and is punctuated by rock outcrops, which further allow groundwater to seep through (Figure 3) [8]. Indeed, both groundwater and air are seen to escape from the columns (Figure 4a), and when cut, large volumes of groundwater stream out and new growth of ikaite starts to form almost immediately (Figure 4b) [1,6]. As the groundwater has a lower density than seawater, the growth is upwards, enabling columns to grow up to the halocline, some being 2–3 m below sea surface (Figure 3), where brackish water no longer supplies sufficient Ca+ ions [1,6] for ikaite formation. In total, 938 columns of size 0.5 to 20 m tall were mapped from a multibeam sonar survey (Figure 2) providing GPS position, depth" Oral after calcite after ikaite! This gorgeous spiney rock is found in Australia! https://www.gia.edu/gems-gemology/spring-2023-gemnews-double-pseudomorph-ikaite-calcite-opal Water scaling from white at the top to deep blue at the bottom provides background for a tower built of light-colored lumpy ikaite. There are a few small towers around the spectacular column. The whole thing is growing from a mound on the seafloor. Ikiate tower in Ikka Fjord, ikaite's type locality. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/One-group-of-the-ikaite-tufa-columns-of-Ikka-Fjord-growing-on-top-of-a-syenitic-roches_fig3_390438140
September 14, 2025 at 11:15 AM
jeffday.bsky.social
also going back to the whole inking thing - many squid will produce what’s known as an ink “pseudomorph”, i.e. ink in a formation that resembles themselves, or another animal:

https://youtu.be/BXhaPGhKXjU
Ink impostors: Out of the darkness of the deep, ghostly clouds take shape
Out of the darkness of the deep, ghostly clouds take shape. What are these mysterious apparitions? When spooked by a predator, a squid may quickly escape, leaving behind a shroud of ink. This decoy distracts so the squid can jet to safety. Their ink shapes take on many forms—clouds, streams, dots, ropes, and more. These animal-look-alike shapes are known as pseudomorphs. We don’t know whether the squids are mimicking other animals, but here are some of our favorite pseudomorphs. As we explore the ocean, we continue to learn more about the animals in the mysterious midnight waters far below. Animals in pseudomorph clips, in order of appearance: 01:06 Red-lipped comb jelly, Bathyctena chuni 01:13 Woolly siphonophore, Apolemia lanosa 01:24 Top hat jelly, Leuckartiara sp. 01:31 Red-grooved siphonophore, Apolemia rubriversa 01:37 Tower jelly, Neoturris sp. 01:45 Black-eyed squid, Gonatus onyx 01:52 Rocketship siphonophore, Chuniphyes multidentata 01:58 Cockatoo squid, Taonius sp. More on squid ink: https://youtu.be/_Q4H-BB7CXI More cephalopod videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8y7x0SoYxpe1pLjI8STAepK7dj6FEn0l More deep-sea animal Halloween videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8y7x0SoYxpfZgtCEVwp37cvCDCEsCVBE Producer/editor: Kristine Walz Production team: Raúl Nava, Kyra Schlining, Susan von Thun Music: Scary Forest by HookSounds Originals from HookSounds.com
youtu.be
May 10, 2023 at 3:41 AM
sarahmackattack.bsky.social
Squid can dispatch ink in two ways, in a big cloud like a smoke bomb, or in a tight little ball that they mix in with mucous to hold its shape. The mucous blob is called a pseudomorph they're typically the same size as the squid, to confuse predators.
February 6, 2025 at 6:26 PM
vickyveritas.bsky.social
A pseudomorph (false form) is when one mineral changes to another, but keeps the original form. #copper

#OreCup25 #MinCup25 ⚒️ sci-fi 🧪 🖖🏼 scifi Geosciences #WomenInSTEM geology 🔭🪐
richardgibson.bsky.social Richard Gibson @richardgibson.bsky.social · 7d
#MineralMonday #Copper pseudomorph after pseudohexagonal aragonite twin, Corocoro, Bolivia. ⚒️ #geology . No MAGA! Science = Resistance! #standupforscience
November 3, 2025 at 4:01 PM
cephalopodsdaily.bsky.social
When cephalopods ink, they can create an ink cloud like a smoke screen, or they can create "pseudomorphs." These are ink clouds mixed with mucus to create a decoy to confuse predators

I'm don't think this is a pseudomorph here, but I haven't found a picture of this behaviour
A Lesser Two-spot Octopus (Octopus bimaculoides) jetting away while releasing an ink cloud.
August 31, 2023 at 9:13 PM
willettcreekagate.bsky.social
That's a cool piece. Definitely looks burnt. I'm curious about the streak color of the black area. Is it the same mineralization as the lighter area which I assume is silica. I have some that mineralized with pyrite and is now a pseudomorph.
January 11, 2025 at 2:06 AM
kenbruneau.bsky.social
Some sort of pseudomorph after calcite perhaps? Honestly, I’m not sure but it’s really cool.
May 2, 2025 at 4:55 AM
richardgibson.bsky.social
#MineralMonday For #Bastille Day, malachite pseudomorph after cuprite (octahedrons and dodecahedrons), Chessy, France, 13x10 mm ⚒️ #geology . No MAGA! Science = Resistance! #standupforscience
July 14, 2025 at 2:34 PM
nadwgab.bsky.social
181 of #365Minerals 🧪⚒️

Bayldonite:
- An arsenate mineral
- Forms in oxidised zone of polymetallic deposits
- Discovered in Penberthy Croft Mine, Cornwall, England
- Named after John Bayldon (1837/8-1872), an English physician #minerals #MineralMonday
A dark green crust of balydonite with white quartz on a limonitic matrix. From Cornwall, England, UK. Specimen on display in the Natural History Museum, London. Elongate tubular prisms of balydonite. This is a pseudomorph after mimetite, which means the balydonite replaced the original mimetite crystals. From Tsumeb Mine, Oshikoto, Namibia. Specimen on display in the Natural History Museum, London.
June 30, 2025 at 9:27 AM
allochthonous.bsky.social
Ikaite pseudomorphs found in the rock record are usually referred to as 'glendonite', and because ikaite is associated with sediments deposited in cold bottom waters, glendonite can be used as a paleoclimatic indicator.

Figure from supplementary information of www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Heat map showing Phanerozoic distribution of glendonite (pseudomorph after the hydrated carbonate ikaite) over time (horizontal axis, from about 450 million years ago on the left to the present on the right, divided into what looks like 1 million year bins) and space (vertical axis, from 0 degrees absolute latitude on the bottom to 90 degrees at the top, 5 degree bins). Where glendonite has been identified within a particular age/latitude bin, it is shaded a light pink for a low number of recorded occurrences, green for a moderate number of recorded occurrences, and blue for a high number of recorded occurrences. The distribution of glendonite occurrences is shown to be very non-uniform over geological time, with low to intermediate counts between 40 degrees and 75 degrees latitude in the past 50 million years; largely moderate to high counts between 60 and 90 degrees latitude from about 180 to 100 million years ago; and low to intermediate counts between about 45 and 85 degrees latitude from about 300 to 240 million years ago.
September 14, 2025 at 1:54 PM
microtopico.bsky.social
#Vivianite I had to look up last year. It is a blue-green hydrated iron phosphate (Fe2(+II)[PO4]2 x 8H2O) with monoclinic crystal structure and acicular or fibrous aggregates.

But look at this 🤩: #Vivianite pseudomorph after shell from Kerch, Crimean Peninsula #MinCup23
📷 Rob Lavinsky, iRocks.com
Vivianite after shell
September 7, 2023 at 5:06 AM
moonbreeze.bsky.social
Speaking of book covers, have you ever read Land of the Lustrous by Haruko Ichikawa? It's a really stunning work with modern buddhist themes and fantastic covers.
One of its art books, Pseudomorph of Love, that I own and love. One of the covers of Land of the Lustrous, aka Vương Quốc Bảo Thạch.
September 17, 2025 at 6:42 AM
kristinadunkel.bsky.social
For my first #ThinsectionThursday under the blue sky, one of my favourite micrographs: A serpentine pseudomorph after carbonate?
The mineral with the grey interference colours is serpentine which apparently preserves the cleavage of a pre-existing carbonate.
November 21, 2024 at 7:48 AM
mineralcollection.bsky.social
www.mineralcollection.eu/product/2009...
#quartz #pseudomorph #eisenkiesel #goethite #silicates #oxides #hohenlimburgquarry #minerals #rocks #crystals #stones
August 22, 2025 at 12:56 PM
mexporg.bsky.social
Museum quality pseudomorph of #Silver after #Dyscrasite from Příbram, Czech Republic.

#MinCup25 #MinCup #elements #mineral #mineralogy
September 5, 2025 at 6:47 PM
computer.fish
I never understood the appeal of artbooks but I just learned about Pseudomorph of Love and I have a mighty need
September 21, 2023 at 2:44 PM
cheesefinger.bsky.social
Shelf 5 3rd row: Art Books and other special books. I'll probably make another post showing them a little more later. I really love art books and wish I had more, but they can be too expensive and hard to find.
Left to right: 1. Memory of Revue(Revue Starlight movie storyboard book) 2. Pseudomorph of Love(Houseki no Kuni art book) 3. Madoka Ultimate Art Works 4-11. Monogatari Heroine series 12.Namori art book (mangaka of YuruYuri. This one is my favorite. It's jam packed with beautiful full color illustrations 13. Akebis Sailor Uniform art book 14. Ultra Heaven vol 1 (just a manga, but it's the size of an art book 15. An issue of Shonen Sunday I bought just because I loved the Nazuna art on the cover. 16. The magazine that has the final chapter of Houseki no Kuni in it. I love this box art! Clare looks so pretty! if you like action series full of strong women, Claymore is pretty great. The ending is spectacular
March 11, 2025 at 9:10 PM
antifapatriot.bsky.social
Opal "pineapples"

An opal pseudomorph formed by the replacement of glauberite by opal, found only in New South Wales, Australia

📷: Grant Pearson
March 13, 2024 at 11:49 PM
tbirdstones.bsky.social
This is what we believe to be a chalcedony pseudomorph after calcite. This is from one of our newly discovered localities here in Washington State. We’ve named this prospect the “Juicy G Prospect”
Initially, we were just finding small nodules at this location, but they soon turned larger and hollow!
February 8, 2025 at 1:33 AM
kinky-dinky.bsky.social
How cool is that?!

Pseudomorph is now a physical thing I can hold in my hands 🤯

18cm tall, still somehow pretty small. The details came off great, I'll probably have to reconsider those little bumps on the base. I had been warned, but I wanted to see how they looked.
November 2, 2023 at 7:04 PM