One Foot in Ancient History

If you’ve been one of my regular readers, you know I love ancient history.  The Tucson gem show honors ancient history, in some cases without meaning to, and in other cases, most deliberately.  The gems themselves, now faceted, clean, and shiny, are, of course, the result of millions of years of mineral growth that we cannot see from our vantage point. We can’t see or feel the magma pushing up minerals from the Earth’s mantle, nor can we see what colors are being cultivated by Mother Nature. The brutal forces of heat, cold, microparticle movement and pressure generate the raw material that becomes the stones we love and cherish. For me, the ability to buy and use these gems in my work comes with reverence for the process. 

Part of the show that I love concerns itself with ancient fossils and geodes. This year, I visited a guy with a “baby” Tyrannosaurus full-body fossil and a Tyrannosaurus head fossil. Turns out, these fossils were exact copies of real fossils. While that deflated me a little, he explained that museums buy these exact copies to have on display and, of course, it makes sense. There are not so many intact dino fossils to go around. I learned that if someone wanted to buy the real entire baby T-Rex fossil, they’d have to pay about $12 million. A copy?  $165,000.

Getting back to gems and crystals, the geodes and crystal “clumps” always mesmerize me. Here, some of this year’s best. 

And before I go, some photos of ancient fish fossilized in dry mud. They are seeing the light for the first time in millions of years. 

From old to new and back again…

Diana