September, 2021
My rock library, a degree in the making: so displayed in all its glory while I catalogue all its constituents. All but three I remember from whence they came (an unusual feat of my otherwise unreliable memory) but the collection has grown considerably over the years, and will continue to grow some more, so a labelling system must now emerge.
Most of these I collected myself, on fieldtrips and travels (all the way back to before I’d even considered doing geology, on the slopes of an Icelandic glacier in 2015). Some of these have come from Almeria, Spain – of these my favourites are from the El Hoyazo Volcano; a bright black rock streaked with white silimanite and studded with garnets, and garnets aplenty collected into the wine bottle. The left half come from Santorini, where I did my Bachelor’s mapping project; among these are scoria pebbles from Red Beach, slivers of stromatolites, and streaked lavas which evidence magma mixing. Some more come from the Azores, and others from across the UK. (Most are igneous, since volcanoes are among my most favourite things.)
Some gifts there are also to the right; several hunks of sulphurous rock from Vesuvian solfataras that my sister brought back from a school trip (said with a shrug: “You said you wanted rocks...” – I accepted with glee and amazement both – the size!); pink Himalayan salt, gifted by a friend (“You have to lick it! And then guess what it is!” – rightly guessed while still unpackaged, then faithfully licked in accompaniment to tequila); and a beautiful array of Moroccan specimens from a family friend, which I frequently croon over and fiercely protect from my sister’s thieving hands (she likes the shiny minerals, alas). And a fairly recent acquisition too, was bought – bookends of fossiliferous Devonian limestone, from the famous Konzentrat Lagerstatten near Erfoud, Morocco – some 400 million years old.
