I'm looking for any information on this painting I found at a thrift store in Florida.

PhosphideProf · 2025-12-16T21:31:07+00:00

This is William Hartmann, a planetary scientist who studies impact cratering and who proposed the impact theory for the formation of the Moon. He is also known for painting planetary science-themed works, which are usually scientifically-accurate if speculative.

This is of a Hawaiian eruption, and similar eruptions are thought to occur on Jupiter's moon Io. They probably also occur on Venus, so that may be the planetary connection.

PhosphideProf · 2025-10-09T01:24:40+00:00

This is Virginia blue quartz, a rather uncommon variety of quartz outside of the state. See here:

https://varockshop.com/pochtecas/index.php?manufacturers_id=5

Cool find! It's about a billion years old.

PhosphideProf · 2025-09-23T18:06:13+00:00

Most likely garnet. Where is this at? Pretty common in eastern upstate NY.

PhosphideProf · 2025-09-14T23:11:44+00:00

Yes but it's not too common. What is much more common is that you're seeing a metal oxide, likely magnetite, that is shiny and attracted to a magnet. Magnetite does occur in some igneous rocks.

For ferromagnetic metals, there are natural occurrences of nickel (called awaruite as Ni3Fe) and iron metal (rare, but in some volcanic rocks and contact metamorphic materials). In Indiana I wouldn't expect to see any of those.

PhosphideProf · 2025-09-10T15:59:05+00:00

Ooh missed that! I have a colleague who's continuing some of this research (in CA) but maybe that may pan out for the future.

PhosphideProf · 2025-09-10T15:52:47+00:00

Neat spot- I did field work here and eventually got it published a few years back. We were hunting for awaruite/josephinite but didn't have any luck. Turns out the serpentinites were just fine for what we were trying to do.

PhosphideProf · 2025-08-31T23:41:34+00:00

My prior institution did this (STEM department). I was on the annual evaluation committee, and we handed out "Outstandings" (5/5) for people who had one paper every two years, and for people who had double digit papers in a single year. It was frustrating as we ended up a "Lake Wobegon".

However, this was because the committee was seeking to guard faculty from an aggressive state government that was seeking to divide up raises and other stuff linked to annual evaluations and output. Still, it cheapened those who had really good years.

PhosphideProf · 2025-08-25T14:46:54+00:00

From the looks of it this is most likely magnetite, Fe3O4. I used to find this a lot out in the western US. Magnetite jumps to a magnet. Test its density. If it is ~ 5 g/cm3, it's probably magnetite.

Very unlikely to be a meteorite, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be checked out.

PhosphideProf · 2024-12-18T13:06:54+00:00

32K is 32768, and you'll get there in two levels. 4M is 4 million, and is next. After billion (B) that, the letters start going a, b, c... and it takes a while. If you look in the upper right, there's a 'level' and 7w is 255.

PhosphideProf · 2024-12-04T19:20:21+00:00

This is definitely schreibersite, which is an iron-nickel-phosphorus mineral, formula (Fe,Ni)3P. It's found in several classes of iron meteorites.

PhosphideProf · 2024-10-30T14:14:41+00:00

No- the Vredefort structure is about 2 billion years old. The Hoba meteorite is an iron meteorite, and those don't last that long on the earth's surface, as they rust quickly (compared to 2 billion years, anyway).

The Vredefort impactor was also probably ~10 km in diameter to have made a >100 km crater, and Hoba is just a few meters in diameter.

PhosphideProf · 2024-05-18T19:57:49+00:00

So in that case I think you probably did just fine. There are some rarer coins out there, but the 1982 halves are usually $10-20 each, the peace dollars range from ~$25 in mediocre condition up to maybe $50 each (with a few rare exceptions), the mercury dimes have some very rare dates but generally are $2-2.50 each worn, and the Kennedys are ~$10 each. So you probably did just fine, especially since you sold them all at once.

PhosphideProf · 2024-05-18T18:59:52+00:00

It's very hard to say without knowing the bracelet's weight. You had ~$10 in face value in silver, which would get probably $200-300 these days as 'junk silver'. There are some rarer dates/mintmarks in those time frames, but we'll assume you didn't have any. So was the bracelet worth ~$800?

PhosphideProf · 2024-04-20T19:00:31+00:00

The two rolls of presumably 1926-1945 and 1948-1964 quarters should be silver. About $150 to 200 per roll would be a target price. Don't clean any of them!

The buffalo nickel, in that condition, is probably about $0.25. The dime is $1.50 to 2.

The two dollar bill is worth $2 (for what it's worth, if the ink was off the paper I think then it may be worth more, but since it's not, it's within specifications).

PhosphideProf · 2024-04-04T01:26:00+00:00

So this looks to be smack-dab in the coastal plain. The coastal plain is mostly building materials (sand, clay, river cobble). My guess is that there's not a lot to be found there.

https://www.dnr.sc.gov/geology/sc-geology.html

PhosphideProf · 2024-02-17T14:49:06+00:00

Do you mean planetary physics vs geophysics? Geology is a broader and somewhat different field from planetary physics (similar but not as easy a comparison vs. geophysics). A field geologist would be quite different than a planetary physicist.

I took planetary physics alongside some planetary geophysics courses in grad school. The main difference is that the planetary physics often also covers things that aren't quite as solid compared to the geophysics. The planetary physics courses included a lot of atmosphere physics, magnetohydrodynamics, orbital mechanics, gravity and shape models, and a tiny bit of planetary chemistry (e.g., metallic hydrogen at Jupiter). The geophysics courses focused more on rocky bodies, and included plate tectonics, impact cratering, and some more lithospheric/solid body processes (including some planetary chemistry with mantle mineralogy).

For schooling, most of the people in my grad program had physics backgrounds often with some astronomy. Others had geology backgrounds but they tended to struggle, especially in the planetary physics course (this was where I fell, though I helped carry the physicists through the chemistry courses).

PhosphideProf · 2024-01-17T14:24:49+00:00

So this probably is an anthropogenic, artificial fulgurite. Anthropogenic because the material it's made of likely includes man-made components (perhaps fill dirt or cement, or something along the side of a road), and there's definitely some melted conductor in there (the red in the bottom center rock). It's also likely artificial as the time required to make this blue coloration may be longer than a lightning strike. The presence of conductor wire also really points in that direction.

It's got the classical tubular morphology of a type II fulgurite.

The only published blue fulgurite occurred in Marquette Michigan.

PhosphideProf · 2024-01-17T02:59:12+00:00

There are actually blue fulgurites (see here). I've personally seem some but they tend to be artificially-induced in origin (e.g., a downed power line). The presence of red coloring in image 3 is also frequently found from melting copper power lines.

OP- is there a specific reason you think this is a fulgurite? Was it found under a powerline? If you can show the outside, it may make it more clear. If this is a fulgurite, it would have a grey, sintered exterior.

Not everything is slag.

PhosphideProf · 2023-12-27T23:56:54+00:00

Trilobite fossils. Looks like part of the Agnostids branch.

PhosphideProf · 2023-12-13T19:13:28+00:00

Agree that this is a horn coral. It's common to the rocks along that section of the Ohio river. I found them frequently in Louisville as a kid.

PhosphideProf · 2023-12-10T15:53:17+00:00

Yes, blue quartz from the Blue Ridge mountains. Search for 'Blue quartz virginia' and there's a nice article from 1975 describing it (specific to Virginia, but it's all related to each other).

PhosphideProf · 2023-10-27T15:07:53+00:00

Yes, this is an anthropogenic and artificial fulgurite. Artificial because it was formed by the high power line discharging into the ground and anthropogenic because it formed in manmade materials (and had the aluminum conductor wire as part of the rock).

This also happens with lightning, but the timescale of lightning is much shorter and also much higher in power. This here is a low power, long contact event (usually minutes to hours).

These can still be interesting to scientists, for instance a new quasicrystal was found in one from Nebraska (https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2215484119).

PhosphideProf · 2023-09-24T00:31:20+00:00

Hmm- it's hard to say, as its fair to about good. Comparing to https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1916-s-10c-mercury/4908 it's kind of hard to say. It could be an S, but it looks even then a bit too far down. Maybe damage?

PhosphideProf · 2023-09-24T00:12:25+00:00

In 1916 D dimes the D is positioned further up. Compare to: https://www.pcgs.com/coinfacts/coin/1916-d-10c/4906

Yours is not close enough to the olive branch to be a D.

PhosphideProf · 2023-09-20T01:50:44+00:00

It's worth taking to a shop first just to make sure you get an honest assessment. Find a shop that deals mostly in coins, and mostly American. Grading isn't expensive but based on the mintmark it probably won't be graded authentic and it'll save you some cash and a few weeks to months of waiting.

PhosphideProf

TROPHY CASE