Maria Gorick
LightNews LightNews
banner
mariagorick.bsky.social
Maria Gorick
@mariagorick.bsky.social
470 followers 920 following 25 posts
University lecturer, module lead and author. Based in Manchester, UK. She/her. Geology. Geoscience. Maths.
Posts Replies Media Videos
Reposted by Maria Gorick
calamitaman.bsky.social
#ThinSectionThursday Fun with the piemontite schist!
4th picture shows the change in color of the same (pink) piemontite grain after rotating the stage.

FOV 3 mm
⚒️ #geology #minerals
piemontite piemontite piemontite piemontite
February 12, 2026 at 12:56 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
mineralsocamerica.bsky.social
Thin Section Thursday! Feldspar and quartz Cross polarized light. Contributed by Bernhard Seubert.
You can contribute too! Send image(s) and short explanation to akoziol1 at udayton dot edu. #thinsectionthursday
February 12, 2026 at 1:44 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
mexporg.bsky.social
Native #Gold is a precious metal with extreme physical properties. It's monetary value is actually not the most interesting!

Learn more in our comprehensive overview:

#element #mineral #crystal #mineralogy #mineralexpert #MineralMonday

mineralexpert.org/article/gold...
Gold - The Yellow Metal
Gold is a bright yellow native element, long prized as an object of natural beauty.
mineralexpert.org
February 9, 2026 at 11:37 AM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
andersonmineral.bsky.social
SO COOL!! Sulphur taking the shape of a pinecone!! It replaced the original material. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪
Pinecone made up of sulphur, so it’s a pale brown colour. It sits on a clear plexiglass plinth on a white background. At the Field Museum.
February 9, 2026 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
mineralsocamerica.bsky.social
Mineral Monday: Spessartine Garnets
By Chris Tacker, NC State Museum
Bald Knob is a type locality for several manganese end-member minerals. Hypothesis: a metamorphosed deposit of manganese nodules.

#MSACommunications #MineralMonday #mineral #garnet #Spessartine #Spessartite #Manganese
February 9, 2026 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
naturaelapides.bsky.social
Mohs scale #MineralMonday, #7 easy !

Classical quartz from Minas Gerais.
Brasilian transparent rock crystals
February 9, 2026 at 2:14 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
catwithrocks.bsky.social
For this #MineralMonday I have a little fella! The weird "navel mine" crystal is Whitmoreite, an iron phosphate! This specimen comes from New Hampshire.
A mineral specimen of Whitmoreite under a microscope. The Whitmoreite is the brown and yellow crystal in the center. It is made up of a brown sphere with yellow needles extending from the sphere. It's shape resembles a navel mine. The rest of the rock is made up of pale green Ludlamite. This specimen is from Grafton County, New Hampshire.
February 9, 2026 at 2:45 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
calamitaman.bsky.social
#FridayFold folded Sinemurian limestones at Punta delle Rocchette, Southern Tuscany, Italy

#geology #tectonics #structuralgeology
outcrop with folded rock formations
February 6, 2026 at 7:55 AM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
calamitaman.bsky.social
Today I feel very stressed, but not as much as this ultramylonite from Mt. Grighini, Sardinia

FOV 3 mm. CPL light
#geology #ThinSectionThursday
ultramylonite
February 5, 2026 at 10:17 AM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
colinmacpherson.bsky.social
(Long) Before mobile phones: hand drawn PPL and XPL views of porphyritic dolerite from Ben Hiant, Ardnamurchan, Scotland. From my undergraduate mapping report. #ThinSectionThursday 🧪⚒️🌋
Overlapping circles showing plane- and cross-polarised light view of porphyritic dolerite from Ben Hiant, Ardnamurchan, Scotland. Large, euherdal olivine and plagioclase, with infilling clinopyroxene, oxides, and glassy bearing smaller, euhedral plagioclase.
February 5, 2026 at 10:46 AM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
mineralsocamerica.bsky.social
Thin Section Thursday!
Incipient crystallization of plagioclase during continuous decompression in an experimental charge. Backscatter Electron Image. Contributed by Thomas Shea, Univ. of Hawai’i
Send image(s) and short caption to akoziol1 (at) udayton dot edu. #thinsectionthursday
February 5, 2026 at 1:45 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
bobgooday.bsky.social
Olympic curling has to be the sporting highlight of the Scottish geological calendar. 🥌 All the stones come from Ailsa Craig in the Firth of Clyde. The distinctive black spots are (mostly) the very weird and rare amphibole arfvedsonite. #ThinSectionThursday
Microscope image of Ailsa Craig Common Green microgranite thin section. Mostly quartz and cloudy feldspar with patches and clots of very dark green and brown minerals infilling gaps. A tiny replica curling stone sitting on top of a sample of the same green spotty rock. They are sitting on a desk under a computer monitor next to other minerals.
February 5, 2026 at 3:49 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
silicatefondue.fosstodon.org.ap.brid.gy
Hand sample and thin section of a pillow rind and interior from Palaeogene lavas of eastern Baffin island. The solidifying melt continued to exsolve gas bubbles, trapped in the pillow interior by the rind.

#ThinSectionThursday #baffinisland #basalt #geology
A cut fact of a basaltic pillow with the quenched pillow rind on the left (swiss army knife for scale). A transmitted light photo of a thin section spanning the pillow rind on the left to the pillow interior. Gas bubbles show as round white patches within the pillow interior. Horizontal field of view 3.5 cm
February 5, 2026 at 7:43 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
thammerich.bsky.social
#MineralMonday

📷 A "nutshell" full of geological stories. This Lochaber Geopark Rock Box packs millions of years of Scottish Earth history.

📍Seen at:
Lochaber Geopark Visitors Center, Fort William 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

#Geology #Rocks #STEM #MINT #Geopark ⚒
The picture shows a red rock box containing a labelled collection of rock and mineral samples from the Lochaber Geopark. Each specimen is placed in its own compartment and marked with a coloured dot that matches an identification chart behind the box. The display is designed for hands-on learning, allowing viewers to explore different types of rocks and learn about their geological origins. More Info about the Lochaber Geopark: https://lochabergeopark.org.uk/thingstodo/ Picture: Thomas Hammerich
February 2, 2026 at 6:10 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
mexporg.bsky.social
#Calcite forms over 2000 known crystal shapes and has different range of colors. It has also very interesting optical properties. Learn more in our comprehensive mineral overview:

#mineral #crystal #MineralMonday #mineralogy

mineralexpert.org/article/calc...
Calcite - Mineral Properties, Photos and Occurence
Overview of calcite mineral physical properties, structure and its origin and occurence in nature.
mineralexpert.org
February 2, 2026 at 9:10 AM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
andersonmineral.bsky.social
Look at these gorgeous deep green crystals of uvarovite, some showing that classic garnet crystal shape!! It’s from Outokumpu, Finland. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪
Close up of a side of a specimen consisting of clear to white quartz, pyrrhotite, and other minerals with deep green crystals of uvarovite speckled throughout. It sits on a black background. At the Hunterian.
February 2, 2026 at 12:30 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
bobborsley.bsky.social
Happy Birthday. Today is 200 years since the opening of Thomas Telford's masterpiece: the Menai Suspension Bridge (Pont Grog y Borth):
January 30, 2026 at 7:32 AM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
callanbentley.bsky.social
My final #FridayFold from December's visit to Mosaic Canyon in Death Valley NP in California. This one is pretty crazy, with at least two hinges. See if you can make any sense of it. ⚒️
An outcrop of intensely folded layered tan and gray rock. Geologist's hand for scale.
January 30, 2026 at 5:49 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
mineralsocamerica.bsky.social
Thin Section Thursday!
Julian schist: Mica schist in XPL from the Julian Schist at Julian, California USA. Contributed by Paolo Sanchez.
You can contribute too! Send image(s) and short caption to akoziol1 (at) udayton dot edu. #thinsectionthursday
January 29, 2026 at 12:36 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
agpaitic-adam.bsky.social
Fractured glassy breccia meets bubbly microcrystalline basalt in a hyaloclastite from Iceland (or is it Greenland, I can never remember...).

#thinsectionthursday #geology #science #minerals #rocks #microscope #microscopy
January 29, 2026 at 2:17 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
coesite.bsky.social
Piemontite in phengite-carbonate schist, Lago di Cignana, N. Italy.
#thinsectionthursday
Piemontite in phengite-carbonate schist, Lago di Cignana, N. Italy.
January 29, 2026 at 4:08 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
tomsharperocks.bsky.social
I don't usually do #TrilobiteTuesday, but here's a rather nice large olenellid in an outcrop of Cambrian sediments in Gros Morne National Park, Western Newfoundland.
A photograph of a trilobite fossil in a rock outcrop, its head and body segments still conjoined, and its tail slightly displaced, with a pen for scale on the left.
January 27, 2026 at 1:57 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
cambriancam.bsky.social
Welcome back to #TrilobiteTuesday

Here is Bumastus ioxus from the Lower Silurian Rochester Shale (Clinton Group) from Middleport, New York State.
January 27, 2026 at 4:46 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
catwithrocks.bsky.social
This #MineralMonday I got a lovely little crystal of Arsenopyrite from New Jersey! It has got such an interesting crystal habit in my opinion!
Photograph of a mineral specimen taken with a microscope. The image is focused on a dark metallic, tabular crystal of Arsenopyrite on a matrix of clear and white calcite. This specimen is from Sussex County, New Jersey, USA.
January 26, 2026 at 2:57 PM
Reposted by Maria Gorick
richardgibson.bsky.social
Despite the awful things happening, the beauty of nature persists. #MineralMonday Scheelite (not fluorite), Yaogangxian Mine, Hunan, China. Largest crystal 5 mm.⚒️ #geology . No MAGA! Science = Resistance! #standupforscience richardigibson.substack.com/p/yaogangxian
January 26, 2026 at 3:48 PM