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@mineralcollection.bsky.social Oct 10, 2026, 8:35 AM

www.mineralcollection.eu/product/2448... crystal cluster from the Atacama desert in Chile
15 cm x 8 cm
251 gram
€ 60
#gypsum #selenite #sulfates #chileminerals #chileanminerals #minerals #rocks #crystals #stones

@hydromo.bsky.social Sep 28, 2026, 9:16 PM

Gypsum (CaSO₄·2H₂O) — soft evaporite behind plaster & drywall. Forms when Ca/sulfate waters evaporate in arid basins. Mohs 2, perfect cleavage.

Specimen image: AI-generated.
apps.apple.com/us/app/rocks...
#Gypsum #Minerals #RockSpin

@blastylavagrrrl.bsky.social Sep 13, 2026, 1:06 PM

Some Star Wars fans are #salty about the best #StarWars movie since The Empire Strikes Back. No, it really is. It also had giant red crystals that resemble the huge #gypsum cave.

I had to answer so many questions about tasting rocks after this!
#MinCup26 #MinCup #Halite #Salt

@bkania.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 11:28 PM

I Hafnon regrets voting for #Putnisite in #MinCup26
But I would be remiss voting for a mineral named after #Fire 🔥
Gonna get me some #Gypsum this round when the planet feels like it's on fire.
(Ps and I love,love,love this color 💚 ....so)

@bkania.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 11:20 PM

Only 50 minutes remaining and #Gypsum is trailing by about that many votes in #MinCup26

@mexporg.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 9:10 PM

Clear #Gypsum crystals on #Alabaster (fine grained gypsum variety) matrix from Fuentes de Ebro, Zaragoza, Spain.

#MinCup26 #MinCup #mineral #crystal #mineralogy #mineralexpert

@minouette.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 8:34 PM

You should vote for #gypsum in the #MinCup26! How cool are these caves full of massive selenite crystals?!

They inspired my crystal cave crab print, part of my series of plausible but imaginary animals. Plausible but imaginary is harder than you think cause animals are weirder than you think. 🐡

My 8” x 8” ‘Crystal Cave Crab’ linocut shows a crab, like a decorator crab surrounded by and covered with crystals in a gradient of silver to pale blue with iridescent facets on some crystals.

@eos.org Sep 10, 2026, 7:32 PM

Okay, pyromorphite had us dazzled at first, but it turns out #gypsum comes in a pretty green color too! And it's just so versatile: it's found in construction materials, soil fertilizer, dental plaster molds, and even tofu.

PC: Jamain, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0

@catwithgeologists.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 5:57 PM

Today it's #Gypsum against #Pyromorphite at #MinCup26 😻 Look this pawsome lake in #Switzerland was formed because the #mineral gypsum can form #karst 😻 Thus thanks to gypsum Simbalito could have this Pawsome subsurface adventure 😻
#DoesItCat ? Yes🐾

Simbalito is having a subsurface boat trip in a karst lake

@janelleshane.com Sep 10, 2026, 5:29 PM

I'm team #gypsum! It has a form called selenite that consists of long bundles of clear fibers, kind of like a natural form of fiber optics. The fibers can transport an image from the back to the front of the rock, giving it (and ulexite) the nickname TV Rock.

The cover of You Look Like a Thing and I Love You (by Janelle Shane) with the robot drawing on the front cover looking like it's popping out of the book.

View of the book at a slightly different angle showing that sitting on top of the robot box's face is a three inch polished rod of selenite

@jquebc.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 5:12 PM

#MinCup26

Vote #pyromorphite today based on how far I’d travel to collect a decent specimen! Only one rock I’ve found in Derbyshire. Fairly frequent #gypsum satin spar in the glacial till on the Wirral.

Four pieces of sugary looking satin spar gypsum.

Beige-yellow looking rock with small dusting of green pyromorphite.

Handheld microscope close up of pyromorphite on the previous rock.

@jbinnacle.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 5:07 PM

#TeamGypsum
#MinCup
#MinCup26

We're going to lose (as whichever mineral I support thoughout @mineralcup.bsky.social ) but admire all the pretty #gypsum

@mineralcup.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 3:33 PM

#Pyromorphite is currently leading by about a 50-vote margin over #Gypsum with 8 hours to go for this round of #MinCup26.

@kionasmith07.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 2:40 PM

I have a soft spot for #Gypsum (haha I am funny dang it) because it was also one of the first things in my childhood rock collection, but I've really enjoyed learning about #pyromorphite today, and poison green lead crystals are very tempting. Decisions, decisions... #MinCup26

@minouette.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 1:33 PM

Vote #Gypsum for (especially Renaissance) painting! #MinCup26!

@minouette.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 1:04 PM

It's cool that a fungus, Paecilomyces javanicus can make bio minerals of Pyromorphite (sometimes an ore of lead) in lead-polluted soil, and lead is used in pigments but Gypsum easily wins my art vote, with gypsum sculpture since antiquity and its use in chalk!

Vote #Gypsum for #MinCup26!

Rembrandt, The Night Watch
1642

Medium: Oil
Support: Canvas
Size: 379.5 x 453.5 cm
Art period: Baroque
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
Painting

“The Night Watch is one of the most famous Dutch Golden Age paintings. Rembrandt's large painting (363 by 437 centimetres (12 by 14+1⁄2 feet)) is famed for transforming a group portrait of a civic guard company into a compelling drama energized by light and shadow (tenebrism). The title is a misnomer; the painting does not depict a nocturnal scene.” via ColourLex.

This painting contains gypsum, likely associated with his use of lake pigments, according to:

De Keyser N, van Loon A, Gabrieli F, Vanmeert F, Broers FTH, Noble P, De Meyer S, Gestels A, Gonzalez V, Almasian M, van der Werf I, Hermens E, Janssens K, Keune K. Illuminating Rembrandt's Chiaroscuro in The Night Watch: the painting process of Van Ruytenburch's costume. NPJ Herit Sci. 2025;13(1):406. doi: 10.1038/s40494-025-01874-w. Epub 2025 Aug 18. PMID: 40837065; PMCID: PMC12360951.

Title: Head of a lion
Period: Late Period–Ptolemaic Period
Date: 400–300 BCE
Geography: From Egypt
Medium: Gypsum plaster
Dimensions: H. 42.5 x W. 40 cm (16 3/4 x 15 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace and Annette de la Renta Gifts, 2012
Object Number: 2012.235
Curatorial Department: Egyptian Art

Via The Met.

As described this is a beautifully carved head of a lion, photographed against a grey background, mounted on a post. The left ear is broken off, and it's just the face that survives of the original sculpture.

Title: Human-headed winged lion (lamassu)
Period: Neo-Assyrian
Date: ca. 883–859 BCE
Geography: Mesopotamia, Nimrud (ancient Kalhu)
Culture: Assyrian
Medium: Gypsum alabaster
Dimensions: H. 122 1/2 x W. 24 1/2 x D. 109 in., 15999.8 lb. (311.2 x 62.2 x 276.9 cm, 7257.4 kg)
Credit Line: Gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr., 1932
Object Number: 32.143.2
Curatorial Department: Ancient West Asian Art
Via The Met.

Mounted on the corner of a wall is this sculpture of a winged lion with human face with stylized beard, hair and flattened conical hat. It's the most Assyrian thing you can imagine.

Edvard Munch, The Scream
1893

Medium: Tempera and crayon
Support: cardboard
Size: 114,3 cm x 146,7 cm
Art movement: Expressionism
Nasjonalmuseet Oslo
NG.M.00939

Munch painted four versions of this painting. The painting shown on this page is one of the versions painted in tempera and crayon. Via ColourLex

This famous painting (which contains gypsum in several places) shows the stylized bald human with his hands to his cheeks, walking by a fence with a coupled of figures in the distance, with a landscape and a lurid sunset. The figure is dressed in blue-black, has wide eyes and a mouth like an O.

@laurenthemself.bsky.social Sep 10, 2026, 11:51 AM

Ah yes #gypsum, aka my wife #selenite, hello beautiful! #MinCup26

(The only downside is she hates getting wet...)