How does the dirt get so high up in the pyramid in the first place.

So long story short, some creationists started arguing with me about well everything on a fossil posts. They pulled out this image as a gotcha to try and argue carbon dating wasn’t accurate and that the world and fossils aren’t as old as science suggests. Truthfully I don’t know enough about carbon dating to argue back. So please teach me. Is this photo accurate? If so what are they getting wrong? Is radiometric dating even the same as carbon dating?

I apologize if this is not the right place for this. My friend is up in Northern Quebec, he sent me this video. Any idea what is making that noise?

What would this be composed of? Looks like so many layers of different material. (Sorry if this has been asked, or is posted wrong, I have just been dying of curiosity since I saw it.)

Bledug Kesongo, one of the largest mud volcanoes in Central Java, erupted violently for several minutes during the morning of the 3rd December 2024.

This mud volcano has erupted like this numerous times in the last few years, most recently in April 2023. The April 2023 eruption caused one death, while other eruptions have caused injury to people and death of livestock.

The deaths and injuries are due to poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas (H2S), which can be released in large volumes during these eruptions.

Video from Infomitigasi

This has been bothering me for a long time. The Sierra Nevada, White Mountains (California) and Rocky Mountains as well as Mount Shasta and Mount Rainier in the Cascades are all pretty much exactly 14,000 feet high. I am pretty sure that most of them were formed by wildly different processes. Is this just a really huge coincidence or is there some sort of isostatic system in play?

Found this while hiking down a creek bed between two bluffs. This large slab is roughly 5ft by 7ft by 13in which puts it at least a few thousand pounds (safely estimating). Assuming a group of really strong teenagers weren’t just having fun making stone structures, what natural phenomenon has occurred to create this formation?

Any tips on how to identify these? My son will do it eventually but he’ll wanna know if he’s right

I have been subscribed to the channel geology upskill for a while, and have been really enjoying his videos. However, after following him on linkedin (Won't share his name, but you can look him up), he likes and reposts climate change denial posts regularly. A shame that a scientist can be so anti science... Just wanted to get it out there in case folks want to stop supporting (he has a paid series of lessons on his website). Anyone want to suggest other geology youtubers?

I was surfing the Internet when came upon a video about minerals,and the guy in the video stated that the state of ice is under debate and isn't agreed upon by everyone, I tried thinking about it and personally I think that it can't be a mineral since ice is a temporary state of water which will melt at some point even if it takes years,also it needs a certain temperature to occur unlike other minerals like sulfur or graphite or diamonds which can exist no matter the location (exaggerated areas like magma chambers or under the terrestrial surface are not taken into account.) This is just a hypothesis and feel free to correct me.

Hey, so to pre-face this, I know this is a rather weird topic and I hope by the end of my post, things make sense. I have searched high and low, including reddit and various scientific journals, textbooks etc., but I just cannot find a clear answer - probably because it is a rather niche question. For obvious reasons, I refuse to rely solely on the word of those manufacturing/selling these products. Now I may not know a lot but I do know enough to not recommend jade toys a la Gwyneth Paltrow or selenite wands (yes, really, those are sold, yes for internal use).

Background: I am a sex toy educator and am planning on opening a sex shop as well in the near future. Science backed sex toy education is incredibly important to me, as there are (almost) no safety regulations regarding products and as a result, many of the products sold as sex toys are not body safe and some are even incredibly dangerous (stay away from jelly toys, people).

What does body safe mean, you may ask? Essentially, it boils down to products being made out of materials that a) contain no elements harmful/toxic to humans and b) are non-porous and thus can be cleaned adequately. Meaning bacteria, various bodily fluids, lube, and what have you, can be washed off, as the pores are too small for any of that to go inside the material itself. Likewise (logically) there should be no inclusions, bubbles, cracks, crevices, etc. that bacteria can potentially hide in*. Ideally, some non-electric toys made out of body-safe materials (like silicone, stainless steel, or borosilicate glass) can also be sanitized by boiling them (best case scenario).

*I have seen some brands advertising inclusions, bubbles etc. as a sign that their crystals are ~all natural~ but uhm... no, thank you.

Thus my questions :

• Is it actually possible (as some sex toy brands claim) to polish the surface of a 'crystal' toy (the most popular ones are made out of quartz or obsidian) to a degree, where it is non-porous? Chakrubs, one of the biggest brands out there, claims that: "Our researchers from GIA have informed us that Rose Quartz, Clear Quartz, and Amethyst are non-porous."

• Can this type of polishing ever be accomplished without leaving residue of the polishing chemicals behind? Most of the brands I researched do not seal their toys with some form of varnish (like it is done for body-safe wood toys, for example), they all just claim to polish them till they achieve a smooth, supposedly non-porous surface.

• Say this type of polish is possible and it is not achieved by potentially harmful chemicals - how do temperature changes affect quartz and therelike? Like glass or steel toys, crystal toys are often marketed as great for temperature play, so people are encouraged to put them in the fridge/freezer/und warm water for this purpose. Not to mention, bodily orifices are rather warm(er than room temperature).

Should any of you want links to specific brands/products, I am happy to provide them :)

Thanks!

EDIT: I also posted this as a comment but for clarification:

I will get back to a lot of individual comments separately once I have time but just to address some things quickly:

​

• I'm actually a guy so uhm, yeah. kinda funny people assumed I was a woman from the context of the post :D
• there are a lot of comparisons made to glass (toys) and several discussions veer off into the whole 'will it break' side of things - that's not actually something I am asking or terribly concerned about. though my knowledge is fairly limited when it comes to this particular area, I know enough that I wouldn't consider any toys that are made out of easily breakable material. I do know about the Mohs scale and I am very knowledgeable when it comes to glass toys.
• also, I am at present neither advocating for, nor considering selling any kind of crystal toy. In fact, in all my workshops etc. I actively discourage people from buying into the crystal trend because there is just not enough (independent) research into the topic to be able to say for certain that they are safe. Which is the entire reason I am trying to get information in the first place.
• I am likewise not in any way, shape or form considering any products that come from typical crystal re-sellers one can find on etsy or other such platforms - I know those are not to be trusted. For a long time, crystal toys were considered unsafe and very, very niche in the industry, because they all came from these sources, basically. I got interested in looking into the topic further because several large, reputable brands started producing their own crystal lines, advertising them as 'safe' and touting certifications by institutions such as the Gemological Institute of America. And as always when there's no research except from someone trying to sell you something, I get suspicious and want to do independently verify those claims.
• essentially, my base research question is as follows: many materials used in the sex toy industry are porous. (Why? Because they are cheap and there are almost no regulations.) Meaning that even though they may not contain harmful chemicals, they will, over time become harmful because they cannot be cleaned adequately and start harboring bacteria. So every time you use that dildo or fleshlight, lube, bodily fluids, etc. start accumulating in those pores. Pores that cannot be cleaned in a way that removes those bacteria. So over time, it all becomes very, very gross, absolutely not sanitary, can get moldy and become a health hazard, and please either do not buy such products or be aware that they essentially only can be used a limited amount of times.Do I potentially have the same kind of issues when it comes to crystal toys. That's what I want to know. Several companies claim that they polish their toys to such a degree that no, they are not porous and this will not be the case. But is that even possible. And that's where geology comes in, essentially. Because I know nothing about (pretty) rocks and this is not really a very straightforward field research has been done in.
• Sidenote: thank you so much for the tip with food safety regulations u/MillerCreek, that's definitely an avenue I will follow. Sex toy safety is criminally underresearched and a lot has had to be done by independent sex toy educators, actually. When it comes to other sex toy materials, there are some good workarounds, for example, medical applications for silicone, TPE, stainless steel and therelike, or safety regulations for baby products when it comes to certain plastics, but for crystal toys, it's a lot more roundabout and a lot less research is out there.

I want to buy my first geological compass. However I don't know which one to choose (see picture). The main reason I want to buy it is to taking measurements for dip direction, angle and strike. Can someone who have experienced with this compass help me?

Just thinking about which state i would like to move to and settle down in wondering if you guys have some information on states with the most diverse biomes,landscapes, everthing.

States im looking for are:

-where i can drive 2 hours one direction and im in the sands dunes (so on weekends i can ride dirtbikes,atvs or buggies.)'

-where i can drive 2 hours another direction and im in the "Rocky mountains"

-another 2 hours and im in the rainforest

-another 2 snowy areas

so on so forth ive heard these states (Alaska,california,washington,oregon) california seems the winner but would like more information on what you guys think. Sorry if grammer is all over the place using my phone.

In case there is any confusion there, r/whatsthisrock is what you need.

Radiolaria are microfossils (and still living) that date back to the beginning of the Cambrian. Radiolaria, along with Foraminifera, make up most of the deep sea and sea top sediment layer. Some of if not the most intricate and beautiful organisms in the living world.

Ernst Haeckel was a German zoologist, naturalist, and artist in the mid 1800s to early 1900s. Contributing much to the progression of the theories of Darwinism, and evolutionary history of organisms.

Photos:

https://vaulteditions.com/blogs/news/an-introduction-to-radiolaria-an-organism-over-500-million-years-old

https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiolaria

Ive been seeing this all over Youtube lately ever since that poser channel Bright Insight first made a video about it. Now OZGeographics which I had kind of liked and respected until now is believing it because he thinks he saw some tsunami chevrons 650mi inland in the Sahara desert.
Ive tried explaining things along with others and they just get offensive in response. Sometimes i feel like the dumbones have won.

My dad pulled this petrified wood log (approximately 67”x17”)from a NC river and is in the process of turning it into a mantle. He has had the piece for about 3 years now and has finally pulled the trigger on how he wants it to be fit into his house.

After making the initial cuts using a concrete chainsaw he is finding prominent traces of metal and we are wondering what it could be. The pictures above are after being sanded down with up to 3,000 grit using an orbital sander.

I install monitoring wells, sometimes we go 2 or 3 aquifers down. How does the water get there. Does it come from the surface, or is it just trapped there from before times. We'll drill through 200+ feet of mostly dense clay and till. Or does it get down there from somewhere else where maybe its more rocky or sandy so the water has somewhere to trickle down?

Edit. Thanks for the replies