Found on a beach in Hawaii

I’m 49, single mom screaming toward an empty nest. I live in the south but have spent a lot of time the past 10 years in the deserts of Utah, Nevada and California. I feel deeply drawn to those landscapes and in awe of the geology behind them.

As a later in life career shift (I’m in the nonprofit sector) I want to dive into geology. Financially, I’m fine and not needing to make a lot of money in the field. What I do want is the opportunity to work in the field, hands on.

Are there opportunities to work in the field without a degree? Or maybe while working on a degree? It’s fine if it doesn’t pay a lot, I just want to be out there getting my hands dirty and learning as much as possible. I’m even open to volunteer opportunities if that’s a thing?

Thanks in advance everyone!

Looe Cornwall

when you break quartz, obsidian, or chert, they fracture conchoidaly. My understanding is that this is usually because there is a lack of cleavage plane or the force exerted is equal, which can be traced to the material being amorphous. but why? Why is it these weird shapes? if these structures are amorphous why don't they take on a more grainy/uneven texture. there's still something somewhat orderly about conchoidal fractures and I want to know why they form the way they do.

I got this 3 am illumination, I love imagining stories etc and I just had this idea of making a story about new intelligent species developping 1.2 billion years after we went extinct. I don't know a thing about geology and meteorology so I wanted to ask to make sure. I've searched up the "next supercontinent" apprently it's Pangea Proxima but it looks like it will exist in 250 million years so I was wondering if someone would know if it's possible that it's still there in 1.2 billion years... It would make my world building a lot easier than imagining a hypotetic and not logical world because I don't have enough knowledge to imagine how it could look like. Also btw I know the Earth would be desertic bcs of the sun expansion but I made sure to think about humans saving the earth before going extinct with some kind of gravital manipulation to drive earth away enough to have a liveable and good looking planet. Hope someone will be able to give me some hints or ways to develop my idea. Thank to anyone who read this long ass text.

I really enjoy this subreddit, and follow a few similar ones as well. I would like to venture outside of reddit to expand my knowledge of rocks, minerals, crystals, etc. I want to learn about all the words I see used that I don't fully understand.

I'm almost 50 years old and a small business owner. I don't have the time to take classes at a local college. Anyone have good suggestions for books or sites that I can use to expand my personal knowledge? And info is appreciated.

And if so how would I do that? I'm a complete idiot when it comes to geology. But I'm hoping someone could give me a few pointers or send me in the right direction.

Hello, I am looking for some stones to pick for my aquarium, it should be water neutral because I dont want my water to get harder than it should. I found diabase is a neutral stone so is basalt, do you know any way to make 100% sure identfy said rocks?

Thanks for helping in advance

Update: Thanks to you all, great help probably going to today to hunt some rocks

At its furthest reaches from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, I would assume the Atlantic oceanic crust is older and denser than the Nazca plate in the pacific, which is actively subducting under the South American plate. Why does the Atlantic oceanic crust not subduct beneath North America’s continental crust, shouldn’t it be much more inclined to do so than the Nazca plate?

Hi I am looking to speak with someone who uses polarizing/Petrgraphic microscopes and can help me with my photography of thin sections. Trying to figure out some issues I’m having.

I’m hoping to schedule a time to FaceTime someone who can help me figure out what I may be doing wrong since I haven’t used a polarizing/petrographic microscope since college, and I own one now and I’m a bit of an amateur at taking photographs and they look terrible.

Hello! Was on Google maps and noticed a circular feature with a central peak on the sea floor just north of the south sandwich islands. It looks like an impact crater, but can't seem to find any information on it. Anyone know what it is?

Did anyone ever experience strange/toxic workplace dynamics during college due to the unique nature of getting a degree in geology?

I’m graduated now, but just reflecting on my time as a student. There was a decent amount of bullying and favoritism. Also rumors spread by both students and professors. Did anyone else experience anything like that in their departments?

I am looking more for possibility rather than probability. I am writing a fictional book that will have Yellowstone erupt due to a man made, specifically American, to cause. While I know when writing fiction I can make up whatever I want, I want to at least add a bit of logic to it. With this in mind, is man causing such a major reaction even be on the realm of possibility, or would even a nuke not do it? Thank you for your time and coming to my ted talk.

Please submit your ID requests as top-level comments in this post. Any ID requests that are submitted as standalone posts to r/geology will be removed.

To help with your ID post, please provide;

1. Multiple, sharp, in-focus images taken ideally in daylight.
2. Add in a scale to the images (a household item of known size, e.g., a ruler)
3. Provide a location (be as specific as possible) so we can consult local geological maps if necessary.
4. Provide any additional useful information (was it a loose boulder or pulled from an exposure, hardness and streak test results for minerals)

You may also want to post your samples to r/whatsthisrock or r/fossilID for identification.

For many supergene or low-temperature hydrothermal deposits, the presence of gel textures is characteristic. (!) A gel is not just a solution but a special state of matter, intermediate between a liquid and a solid. Gels form when colloidal particles (ranging in size from 1 to 1000 nm) are evenly distributed in a liquid and create a three-dimensional net or structure. This net gives the gel semi-solid properties: it can retain its shape while still containing a significant amount of liquid. Examples from everyday life include ordinary jelly or silica gel.

Gel textures are most commonly found in manganese minerals, which is associated with the specifics of their formation. For these minerals, botryoidal and concentric-zonal textures are particularly typical, and they can occur either separately or together.

Our collection includes about 20 polished sections of manganese ores, all of which originate from the Rudny Altai. These samples were collected from different types of deposits and vary in both mineral composition and degree of "maturity"—from amorphous gel textures to fully crystalline hausmannite.

Are photographs from the Nikolaevskoye Deposit (Irkutsk Oblast, Russia).

1. Panoramic photo (8 × 6 mm), clearly showing botryoidal texture with concentric-zonal structure.

2. A fragment of this panoramic image in PPL and XPL, where the mineral structure of the ore is distinctly visible. The internal heterogeneity of psilomelane is clearly noticeable under crossed polars.

Note that the concentric-zonal aggregates are strictly cyclic and consist of finely dispersed aggregates of #psilomelane, separated by well-crystallized grains of #pyrolusite.

Abbreviated names of minerals: Psl - psilomelane, Prls - pyrolusite. Microscope - Carl Zeiss Axioscop 40, lens x5, PPL+XPL. Our telegram channel - Mineragraphy