OH The Irony! (original) (raw)

I'm spending too much of my money and too much of my time on this element collecting obsession I have. I love chemistry, but I am spending too much time on non-income-producing pursuits. If I don't buckle-down and get some consulting contracts, how can I afford to buy more elements?

Enough emo whining. On to the element pictures of the day:

A section of a sample of crystalline native Copper spinel twins, from the Itauz Mine, Djezkazgan, Kazakhstan.
This area shown is about half of a 3.5 cm sample.

And, a rather unusual sample of native, terrestrial Iron. Native terrestrial Iron, as opposed to meteoric Iron, is found in only a few places in the world, and is brought to the surface by deep volcanic activity.

From the Hungtukun Massif, Taymer Peninsula, Siberia, Russia. Size: 11 x 12 x 4 mm.

I'm doing little else but sleeping and buying elements these days. I've got "son-of-mono" now—reminiscent of what I had a month ago. Still, although I don't do anything much that's productive, I have bought some cool element samples, including one of the last remaining elements which I did not yet have.

As always, if you like what you see here, ask me for the hi-res version. I'm really getting a kick out of photographing these samples, and I've recently learned quite a bit about macro photography and lighting.