Wind-induced Ripple Bedform  With An Obstacle (grass At The Center) That Resulted In Shadow-like Impressions

I am a peddler of chubby cat pics

Peering back in time over 420 million years ago into the Silurian Period when the first land plants emerged. Pictured in the foreground are Baragwanathia and Zosterophyllum with their pinkish coloured sporangia for dispersing spores. More to come soon from this project with biologist and fellow fossil plant enthusiast Ken Kwak.

cats are so beautiful and loving…. when they paw at you and ask u to pet them.. when they purr and close their eyes in content… a warm loaf … when they knead on you… thinking YOU are the bread… stupid… they are the bread… i love cats… so much….

my cat goes by many names

I miss doing microscope work. Can we make a thread of our favourite thin section? This is mine

Actinolite Schist

Fordite, also known as Detroit agate, is old automobile paint which has hardened sufficiently to be cut and polished. It was formed from the built up of layers of enamel paint slag on tracks and skids on which cars were hand spray-painted (a now automated process), which have been baked numerous times.

What if... what if I WANT an info dump???

Then you're my favorite and I will dump SO much info on natrocarbonatite lava

No one knows for sure why or how this type of lava forms. Oldoinyo Lengai is the only volcano on earth that actively erupts it currently, and Oldoinyo Lengai hasn't been extensively studied.

The factor that causes lava to be viscous (thick, and sticky) is its silica content. Rhyolitic magmas, like those in Washington, have around 70 weight % silica. Basaltic magmas, like the volcanoes in Hawai'i, are around 45 wt% silica. Natrocarbonatite lava is less than 3% silica. Its flow rate is close to water, so it flows faster than you can outrun.

It's also a LOT less hot than other lavas. Most lavas are from 700-1200 degrees C (basaltic lavas in the higher range, rhyolitic lavas in the lower), but natrocarbonatite is around 500-600 degrees C. It's cool enough that you won't immediately die if you fall into it (you'll be hospitalized for months, as one man who fell into it was, but it's survivable). It's so cool that you can't see it glow in daylight.

It flows black and cools white! This is because of its content of the minerals nyerereite and gregoryite, which are unstable and break down quickly when exposed to humidity.

Basically it's cool as fuck literally and figuratively and I'm obsessed with it

Summer Dreaming

At this time of year, the sight of some battered bird-built structures can trigger summer dreams. Consider the Baltimore Oriole nest dangling from a linden branch above a Flagstaff Hill sidewalk in Pittsburgh’s Schenley Park.  Watch the bundle of plant fiber and ribbon scraps sway in a cold late winter wind and you might be able to imagine the nest partially concealed by bright green leaves and periodically visited by a bird with goldfish-orange feathers.

Baltimore Oriole pair in CMNH Bird Hall with nest and nest cross-section.

Such out of season thoughts are far from original. One hundred and sixty-one years ago, and some 500 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, naturalist Henry David Thoreau used a different common name for the species when he referenced the bright and melodic warm season residents in a winter journal entry.

What a reminiscence of summer, a fiery hangbird’s nest dangling from an elm over the road when perhaps the thermometer is down to -20, and the traveler goes beating his arms beneath it! It is hard to recall the strain of that bird then.

Henry David Thoreau – journal entry                                                                                                           December 22, 1859

Patrick McShea works in the Education and Visitor Experience department of Carnegie Museum of Natural History. Museum employees are encouraged to blog about their unique experiences and knowledge gained from working at the museum.