Thread by @Gurdur

Tonight's The Distractions for y'all is very late, pardon, but I guess I might as well do some geology.

https://twitter.com/Monica_Wilcox/status/1283912647814139905

2/n Remember! Without stone you have nothing! Without stone you have no Industrial Revolution. No initial anvil.

Here, my photo of (in center) Bulagi Butaka's smithy: knee-bellows w/ protective clay cone, stone for the anvil, one tiny crucible; iron, steel, aluminum & brass.

3/n stone hoodoo! Yes, hoodoo is a proper word, wikipedia it. My photo. Southcentral Tanzania. As a young boy, I lived 10 miles away from this place for a couple of years.

4/n you can do a lot with stone. The island in The Last Jedi, Skellig Michael, Ireland, my photo, because I GET AROUND. Geology is just stones in motion and life-cycle.

5/n Your geology, your life-cycle of stones, determines your life, your history, your battles, your freedom.
My photo (because I GET AROUND), Gettysburg, looking out from Big Round Top, next to Little Round Top

6/n Slowly, slowly, I am working on camouflage, making myself invisible against any sandstone. No doubt basalt or obsidian would have been better because geology, but I can only work with what I've got, me.
In Arizona:

7/n Next project, once I have mastered sandstone, is to be able to look like this. My photo, Inisheer, Ireland

8/n Stone is forever and a day, rebuilding myself in stone, a molecule at a time.

My photo, Dunluce Castle, Northern Ireland.

One for the medicos.
Nurse, this sandstone clearly has cysticercosis!

My photo, northern Arizona.
cc. @DrJudyStone, @rckiser, @DrKimShepherd, @ChristosArgyrop

another one for the medicos.

Nurse, this sandstone has ring-worm!

My photo, northern Arizona.

Your reminder you can be a prof in genetics & genome biology, yet still appreciate the stone.

https://twitter.com/Pathh1/status/1244362815521071107

Won't you roll away the stone?
Why be cold and so alone?
Won't you roll away the stone?
Don't you let it die

youtube.com/watch?v=4MyJHh…

My photo, Northern Ireland. #Basalt! Should be hexagonal, is steadily insisting on being pentagonal.

Never underestimate the fire in the stone. My photo, Nevada*.
_____
*yes, because I get around. You know this.

One of the most unusual gravestones I've seen, in stone of course. Germany, my photo.

Stone is forever and a day. My photo, Inisheer, Ireland.

This is me, facing the consequences of my lifestyle, out on the Giant's Causeway (basalt!), Northern Ireland.

This is me, slowly retreating from the consequences of my lifestyle, out on the Giant's Causeway (basalt!), Northern Ireland.

Stone is forever and a day, and makes you feel small.

Once again in Tanzania, once more with the hoodoos.

"We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;
...
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing
Learn to labor and to wait."

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

My photo, Germany.

Never underestimate the wave in the stone.

My photo, Arizona.

Something you will never see from anyone else, anywhere else. Because I go places others don't.

Footprints in the sands of time; rock-wall paintings 1,500 ~ 800 years old, only discovered a decade ago. Near Iringa, Tanzania. Done by those who preceded the present locals.

Engraved pavement stone, Cologne, Germany, my photo

My photo, Nevada.

prehistoric stone fort & livestock-enclosure in southern Ireland, my photo

stone in Ithaca, New York state, my photo

"How often, o, how often,
In the days that had gone by,
I had stood on that bridge at midnight
And gazed on that wave and sky!
...
And forever and forever,
As long as the river flows,
As long as the heart has passions,
As long as life has woes;"

My photo, Arizona