Each September brings the annual Mineral Cup, a fierce competitors to find out Twitter’s favourite mineral. This 12 months’s contest is properly underway, with kaolinite narrowly beating schorl within the first matchup.

In 2017, University of Hull geology professor Eddie Dempsey claimed that quartz was the perfect mineral after tweeting an image of a geologic outcrop. His followers had some opposite opinions, and to be able to show himself proper, the Mineral Cup was born. The Mineral Cup is an annual single-elimination event to find out which mineral reigns supreme. Mika McKinnon has took over Mineral Cup tasks in 2020 and, with the assistance of 25 volunteers internationally, has formally kicked off this 12 months’s event.

“One of the reasons I love Mineral Cup is this ability for people to rediscover that joy and that connection, where they’re allowed to like rocks and to get enthusiastic without having to justify it,” McKinnon advised me by telephone. McKinnon is a catastrophe researcher, science communicator, and former Gizmodo workers author. “This is definitely proof that rocks are for everybody, and you don’t need to be a certain level of knowledgeable in order to participate.”

Mineral Cup has grown 12 months after 12 months, racking up practically 11,000 followers on its official Twitter account. “This is a hunch based on our interactions, but I would say that about a third of the people participating have some formal connection to geoscience, and two-thirds have zero connection to geoscience,” McKinnon mentioned. “The vast majority of people have no geoscience background.” McKinnon defined that individuals forged votes for all types of purpose—even when it’s so simple as the mineral’s identify being cool.

Yesterday marked the primary day of the bracket, which contains a whole of 32 minerals. The first matchup was between schorl and kaolinite. Schorl is a black, semi-hard mineral sometimes present in granites and high-temperature hydrothermal veins, and whereas it doesn’t have a lot of a industrial goal, it’s sought out by collectors. Kaolinite (which gained with 52.6% of the vote) is a tender, waxy mineral—sometimes white or tender yellow—and rocks which are wealthy in kaolinite can be utilized in porcelain, paper, cosmetics, and toothpaste.

Last 12 months, the winner was a uncommon mineral named quetzacoatlite, a spindly blue crystal named after the god in Aztec folklore. Never heard of it? That’s tremendous, since there are over 5,000 minerals formally acknowledged by the International Mineral Association, with just a few new ones being found yearly. Mineral Cup chooses 16 new minerals every year to compete together with 16 of the earlier 12 months’s prime contenders, to generate af bracket of 32 minerals.

McKinnon is rooting for sylvite this 12 months, which she describes as a “close cousin” of halite (which you would possibly know extra generally as salt). Sylvite, which you’ll safely lick, has a bitter metallic style, as a consequence of it being composed of potassium chloride. Cinnabar can also be within the working, which is a beautiful purple mineral that occurs to be loaded with mercury—so don’t lick that one.

As the Mineral Cup has continued to develop from round 200 votes per match in 2017 to 2,000 votes per match in 2021, the event is an superior reminder of simply how enjoyable geoscience can really be.