Feeling moderately obsessed with interior American deserts, you skip gleefully from Utah to New Mexico.
But this time you head underground, straying into a mineshaft to admire the hydrothermal alteration within cracked limestone.
#YouFindARock and it is gorgeous.
The pearly aqua-blue globular cluster calls out to you with its silky lustre. It’s so tempting!
>
> Pet
You stroke the silky gem, delighting in the smooth texture under your fingers.
Curious, you scratch it. No mark from your nails. Copper? Gem still harder, but your trusty field knife leaves a mark. Moh’s hardness 4-4.5!
>
> Lick
Despite knowing rocks, like frogs and fish, advertise their adverse health effects through pretty colours, you persist in licking.
You lick.
It tastes of nothing. You have the faintest impression of calamine lotion. The traces of zinc probably won’t hurt.
>
> Lick MOAR
The blandness is all-encompassing.
> Pop mineral in your mouth & suck it like a gobstopper.
Your tongue tingles akin to downing a bottle of water from a poorly-rinsed bottle of calamine lotion. The aftertaste is gross & cannot be healthy.
>
> zap zap zap
You pull out your trusty UV flashlight to give your rocky friend different wavelengths to bask in.
The globular lump responds by fluorescing a cheerful pink.
“Pretty!” you exclaim approvingly. “What other tricks do you know?”
>
> acid
“Double, double toil and trouble!” You cackle as you carefully sprinkle acid into the mineral. “Acid drip, and carbonate bubble!”
The pastel mineral effervesces, small bubbles of carbon dioxide popping as the zinc carbonate reacts with your dilute hydrologic acid.
>
> peer exploitingly
You place the mineral on a copy of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It’s too opaque to see anything.
You squint thoughtfully, them point a laser at it. “Yesss!” you exclaim as the laser splits, the crystal’s double-refraction opening up a world of possibilities.
>
> Take
You scoop up the Smithsonian, or given its particularly gorgeous nature, it could easily be traded under it’s gem-name Bonamite.
Your pockets are getting heavy. You may need to visit & expand your radioactive mineral museum soon.
Until next time:
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