Thread by @mikamckinnon

#Quartz is a perfectly fine mineral and I’m sure you have some nearby. I’ve got a few lovely crystals. Whoo quartz.

But #apatite is in your TEETH. You grow it! You’re synthesizing gems! And it’s on the moon! And is super-shiny!!

https://twitter.com/mineralcup/status/1178231672241827840

Forget ravens & writing desks, apatite inspires the even more surreal riddle of “How is a tooth like a lunar landscape?”

Even better?

#apatite is named for being deceptive (mistaken for quartz, among many others).

Apatite is being all kinds of deceptive about revealing how much water is on the moon. Every few years we get new analysis & updates up & down.

Moon is wetter? Moon is drier? Apatite!

Apatite is versatile. Sure, it’s in your teeth (!!!), but it’s also in your bones. Yay skeletal structure!

But wait, it does more! Along with keeping you human-shaped, apatite is key to you lumbering around.

Apatite supplies phosphate to make ATP: human‘s energy source.

Both quartz & apatite are futile to identify.

Is it a mineral? Does it look like anything, any colour, is hard, and doesn’t react to acids or magnets or anything fun? Fuckit, it’s probably quartz but it might be apatite.

Quartz is everywhere all the time.
Apatite is special.