angelicuscadere

void-of-unparalled-chaos

Okay so now that the semester is over, here is a list of actual things my paleontology professor said/did during lecture and discussion:

“I've watched this like 20 times now” (Prehistoric Planet 2 trailer)
“Hi yes I am me, an exemplar of our species. A prime specimen.”
*visible confusion while reading the Colossal website*
“Turkeys can be terrifying. Birds are terrifying in general”
“That’s David Attenbourough not a bird.”

“Thank you for clarifying.”

“You’re welcome! It’s what I’m here for! This is why I have a Ph.d!”

“You need to have a healthy bullshit meter to read any paleontology paper.”
“As I keep telling you, life hates us.”
“Look at the size of the head compared to the body. This is just stupid.”
“Look at the butt of that thing!”

*measures with hands on screen*

“This is a stupid looking animal.” (Cotylorhynchus romeri)
"for example comparing femur robustness is ... what does that even mean?"
“You can laugh…this is a stupid looking creature!”
“Then of course you have your penis worms.”
“Holding fossils from the Burgess Shale is a religious experience.”
“It would be a very mossy world, which I am not opposed to. I like moss :)”
“Taxonomy is a clusterfuck.”
“This is probably one of the most ridiculous animals to have ever evolved.” (Whales)
“It looks like a strange monster from the black lagoon.” (Maiacetus)
“It’s a magical Liopleurodon!”
*does push ups on a table to show us how a fish would have walked*
*showing us a video of a crocodile taken by someone in the water*

“Do NOT do this. Don’t jump into the water with a crocodile. It will end very badly :(“

“This was like one of the weirdest papers I’ve seen. Alright so Ken Carpenter is a very legitimate paleontologist in Colorado. He normally worked with dinosaurs but he also decided to try and figure out how mosasaurs swim. So you look at the skeleton but then you also put two undergrads in a pool, one grabbing the other one's legs to see how that double-limb locomotion would work. It's like the kookiest thing I’ve ever seen published… but yeah I'm not even sure how he got the approval for this… I don’t think this was grant funded… “I would like some undergrad volunteers to jump in a pool, one holding the other ones legs to see if they will drown.””
*rants about the size of the mosasaur in Jurassic World and debates with a student whether or not an actual size mosasaur could pull a T. Rex into the water*
“I like owls. They look like they are wearing trousers :)”
"The Ice Age movie was a missed opportunity. There were so many cool animals they could have used and they didn't use ANY of them! There were giant ground sloths that were so big you can stand in their fossilized burrows! Yeah sure we have that one guy...what's his name...Sid? Yeah sure we have Sid but Sid is NOT a giant ground sloth. That's not even mentioning all of the horses and bison and bears and lions! Its disappointing!"

...

"I was on a podcast about this :D"

geologyandstuff

musicfeedsmysoul12

The Top Reasons Why You Should Know Geology as a Writer

Hello, lovelies! A project for my Introduction to Geology class was to create a ‘promotion’ of Geology as it can be used for things other then you know, tourism or warning of natural disasters. Me, being the writer, decided to create this post that I will be posting for the fun of it. As this is a creative project, I decided to write it as I normally write posts here on my blog.

First off, writing is a complicated business when it comes down to it. Particularly when you get into the idea of worldbuilding. As someone who has two different worlds I’ve been working on creating, one thing that helps a lot is geology in general. I know, it sounds a bit crazy to think about. But it’s true. Geology is the study of the earth itself, and knowing how the earth works, even if it’s just basic concepts, helps build a world. After all, a town in the mountains and a town by the seaside may suffer from different natural disasters, but it comes from the same thing: the shifting of tectonic plates.

Keep reading

geology writing

sea-salted-wolverine

headspace-hotel

Here’s what I have learned about “healing crystals”

Crystals have powers. Why do they have powers? I asked some weird crystal healing websites.

It is because they have energy. What kind of energy? Vibrating energy. Vibrating faster is better.

I would not like to vibrate faster. I have anxiety. I move on from this for now.

The “crystal healing” websites (there are dozens) maintain that the vibrational energy powers of crystals come from their crystalline structures, made of a repeating lattice of molecules. Things that have a specific chemical composition in a lattice structure are crystals, which have powers.

This is okay. This is a scientifically accurate understanding of what a mineral is, except for the powers.

Having established a firm foundation of scientific understanding of what “crystal” means, the crystal healing websites immediately flush that understanding down a toilet of ignorance into the septic tank of stupid.

How? Firstly, many of the most commonly recommended “healing crystals” are stones that are definitionally not crystals. Lapis lazuli, obsidian, tiger’s eye, and opal are some of the most commonly recommended crystals that have powers. The problem is that the powers come from the specific chemical composition in a crystalline structure, and lapis lazuli, obsidian, tiger’s eye and opal don’t have a specific chemical composition in a crystalline structure. But the websites say they have powers anyway.

Wikipedia says opal is amorphous and has no crystalline structure. THAT MEANS NO POWERS! What is the truth? Make up your mind!

I am troubled further still. By what, you ask? Primarily the quartz.

I look at lists of the rocks that have powers. On them is clear quartz, smoky quartz, rose quartz, amethyst, aventurine, chalcedony, jasper, agate, citrine, and carnelian. What do all these things have in common? Being quartz! The base chemical composition that is in the repeating lattice structure is quartz. They are different because of impurities. I thought the impurities meant no powers. But all these quartzes have hella powers—different powers! What is the TRUTH?

headspace-hotel

What powers do the rocks have?

I have documented many powers:

Protection from psychic attacks
Healing the feminine nature
Aids in pursuit of the heavenly self
Manifesting
Aural cleansing
Cosmic healing
Reducing toxins
Psychic antenna
Protects your energy
Igniting passion between lovers
Treats hormonal migraines
Tapping into infinite wisdom
Raising cosmic consciousness
Protection from traffic accidents
Sharpen telepathy skills
Stimulates the chakric field
Strengthens the meridians in the body
Weight loss
Cell regeneration
Aids in recalling past lives
Helps with procrastination
Assists in accessing shamanic realms in the dream state
Activates Dragon energy
Enhances fertility
Attracts your soulmate
Connecting with celestial energy
Connects you to the matriarchal side of your lineage
Helps with high blood pressure
Heals trauma
Removes ghosts
Intuitively vibrates the energy you need
Locates energy blockages in the body
Feminine energy
Calms horses
Making stronger bones and teeth
Recharges your etheric battery with white light
Psychic abilities
Solidifies the strength and flow of love energy
Helps you transcend through your higher chakras
Gives you access to the magical secrets of Merlin
Makes ADHD symptoms subside
Protects against environmental pollution
Scares away energy vampires
Develops your clairvoyant abilities
Helps with claustrophobia
Helps you connect with angels
Helps you access the Akashic records
Soaks up negative energy
Reminds you to stop being bullied (???)
Transmutes negativity to positivity energy
Stores the energy of Jesus Christ consciousness
Shields from electromagnetic waves
Summons archangels
Helps autism
Holds the energy of time and space

It is too much to write. There are many, many, many others. Mostly, websites discuss more general powers, like “protection” or “manifesting.”

I visit many different websites, and I notice that they are all highly inconsistent about what powers each type of crystal appears to have.

So I quickly draw this chart:

Along the side I list major powers of crystals, along the top I list important crystals. Then I mark the boxes whenever one of the website mentions one of the powers as a major important quality of one of the crystals.

Online sources are both highly inconsistent in what crystals do and very broadly attribute their abilities. One website focuses on amethyst as one of the best cleansing stones, another says its main quality is unlocking psychic powers, and another says it is the calming stone. Smoky quartz is well-known for its protection qualities according to one site, well-known for being a calming stone according to another.

“Protection” and “clearing negative energies” seem to be attributable to practically all of them. “Calming” is also like a majority of the stones.

I begin to wonder why there aren’t any stones that make you feel worse. Where are the rocks that make you sexually frustrated, give you headaches, attract toxic people into your life, and put more ghosts in your house.

A few things are weirdly consistent:

Rose quartz is the Love Stone. It is also highly associated with women.
In addition to rose quartz, moonstone is a Woman Stone with Feminine Powers.
Black tourmaline protects you from electromagnetic radiation. If there is one thing the websites all agree upon, it is this.

But for the most part, the websites are all in a lot of disagreement over what the crystals do.

headspace-hotel

to be more serious though it’s kinda horrifying to see how clearly the ideas on these websites are shaped to wring increasing amounts of money out of people. The lifestyle of spiritual wellness they promote entirely hinges on purchasing things.

How to select your crystals. Where to find your crystals. Here are some candles, here are some smudging sticks, here are MORE crystals, it is so focused on buying.

Apart from being pretty, the common quality in all the stones said to have powers is that they’re easy enough to source that they can be sold profitably, but they are uncommon enough that you have to find a place to buy them from. That’s why so many of them are quartz—quartz is common enough that it can be sold at a price most people can afford, but pretty enough that it can justify being price-hiked all to hell.

these websites are trying to convince people that “crystals” are different than, well, rocks, even if they aren’t…actually…crystals, because they have to convince people of a reason that they can’t just…find a rock outside and meditate with it.

And of course pretty rocks are cool, I’ve bought pretty rocks before, I love them, but an obsidian isn’t more spiritual or ~connected to nature~ than a piece of limestone. This makes me sad! Rocks are everywhere, and they’re cool! When I took my geology class I realized that billions of years of unique earth history was underneath me at all times, and that every rock told a story and that none of them were boring, and the world became much much cooler to me!

idk, it’s so depressing to me, how these websites talk about how special it is that these crystals were crafted by nature when it’s like. a Product theyre trying to sell. Why can’t you find a cool rock in a creek and use it as a grounding/meditation tool? Because cool creek rocks don’t have Spiritual Powers…for reasons

and also I’ve been to like local craft fairs and there’s a rock festival I visited in a county near mine and I can tell you that most of these crystals on the Internet are so, so, so overpriced. A 1 1/2 inch clear quartz point should NOT be selling for $45.

I understand the idea of wanting to connect to nature and I definitely understand pretty rocks but there’s something really sad about this

and these websites are also absolutely taking advantage of people who are having struggles in their life and health problems and the ideas they promote are in some cases dangerous

“CHEAPER THAN THERAPY AND A SUSTAINABLE ALTERNATIVE TO ANTIDEPRESSANTS?”

sea-salted-wolverine

Beyond the predatory snake oil cure bullshit, The Thing™️ that really bothers me about the crystal wellness movement, is that it so wildly undersells why these rocks are cool.

The ammonite fossil is not cool because of its "sacred geometry spiral", the thing is cool because it is evidence of life that has not seen the sun since the devonian. Time immemorial held in the palm of your hand.

Smokey quartz is actually not the result of impurities in the quartz it is the result of radiation damage knocking the electron valance of the crystal lattice out of whack. Fluorite has something similar where the colors come from light interacting with misaligned crystal facies. Optical calcite will polarize light. Calcite actually does a whole bunch of insane bullshit under different pressures and temperatures. My personal favorite is olivine, because it is the most common mineral on Earth, it's just inaccessible because it comprises the mantle and we cannot reach that unless there's been some ridiculous orogenies. Also it's acid green.

All this shit is really cool but it relies on you caring about what the rock is and not just what the rock can do for you.

this is so beautiful :') brought tears to my eyes

lionfloss

Gem Silica (Chrysocolla and Malachite)

ukulelekatie

I GOT A REALLY COOL MICROSCOPE FOR CHRISTMAS DO YOU WANT TO SEE SOME ROCKS UNDER MY REALLY COOL MICROSCOPE

reddpenn

Australian boulder opal! This brown matrix is covered in cracks which have filled in with flashy precious opal. She is beautiful, but it is hard to appreciate her colors because she is just such a Little Guy. Let’s get closer.

Pretty good! Under magnification, we can really see the fire of that opal filling in the tiny cracks. This is about the level of magnification that my old microscope could manage. Anyway, let’s get closer.