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"Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." _The Origin of Species

[mineralists]

Plumbogummite with Pyromorphite

[ifuckingloveminerals]

Lévyne-Ca

Burnt Cabin Creek, Spray, Wheeler Co., Oregon, USA

[keepitcxsmic-blog]

♘

[treehauslove]

Alnwick Garden Tree House. The largest tree house in Europe that serves as a magical and unique restaurant. It has trees growing through the floor and even a roaring log fire in the centre of the room. Located in Alnwick, Northumberland, UK. 

[pankurios-templeovarts]

Mutations by Leigh Wurr (Oddly-Spliced).

[130186]

[lil-willy-snakespeare]

[the-second-choice]

[luxurae]

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[mineralists]

Fluorite and Quartz

[ifuckingloveminerals]

Chalcedony stalactites

Tichka massif, High Atlas Mts, Morocco

[fuckyeahmineralogy]

Beryl var. Aquamarine with Fluorite on Muscovite; Nagar, Hunza Valley, Gilgit-Baltistan, Northern Areas of Pakistan

[libutron]

Plumbogummite with Pyromorphite | ©Fabre Minerals

Yangshuo Mine, Yangshuo County, Guilin, Guangxi Zhuang, China.

[libutron]

Opal (variety Hyalite) | ©Fabre Minerals

Central Mexico.

[libutron]

Quartz with Graphite Needles | ©Igor Schwartzmann

[earthblingg]

Flourite

[opticallyaddicted]

[crossconnectmag]

Intimate Portraits of Bees

Researchers take advantage of photography technology developed by the U.S. Army to capture beautiful portraits of bees native to North America.

Photography by Sam Droege, USGS

source

reblog via littlelimpstiff14u2

[native-pollenist]

More stunning photos from Sam Droege of the USGS Bee Inventory and Monitoring Lab

These photos were used in a wonderful feature in National Geographic about Same Droege and the USGS bee lab.

There are 4,000 species of North American bees living north of Mexico, says Sam Droege, head of the bee inventory and monitoring program at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Only 40 of them are introduced species, including the European honeybee.

Most of the natives are overlooked because “a lot of them are super tiny,” Droege says. “The bulk of the bees in the area are about half the size of a honeybee.”

The native species also go unnoticed because they don’t sting, he adds. They quietly go about their business gathering pollen from flowers in gardens, near sand dunes, or on the edges of parks.

Droege and colleagues began to inventory all the bee species in North America in 2001. This was partly because the insects are so important to the agriculture industry.

“Almost all the fruits and nuts, and a lot of the vegetable varieties, that we eat require some insect—usually bees—for pollination,” he explains.

Knowing how bee populations are faring is important when monitoring the health of those urban and otherwise vulnerable environments. 

Finding out after the fact that “all the bees are gone and now we’re screwed,” says Droege, is not what he wants to see happen.

[r-likes]

Strontianite on Magnesite

Oberdorf an der Laming, Austria