Soil Science: Sunday Stamps

Hello blogosphere!
I am pretty excited to be linking back in with Viridian's Sunday Stamps this week, where the theme is all about geology, rocks and the environment. I am excited because I get to share this very cool first day cover I found at a market the other week, when I took a day trip out of the city with two of my sisters.

We visited the Mill Markets, a massive vintage/retro-goods market in Daylesford, about an hour out of Melbourne. I was pretty wrapped with this First Day Cover,  the 9th International Congress of Soil Science from 1968.

It is not entirely geological - but definitely related, I would say.  I loved the stamp and the cover instantly, because working with archaeologists makes one rather enamoured with soils, strangely enough.

The type on the cover is red foil embossed, so it is all pretty spiffy, what with the nice type and little rural scene. I had not seen the cover before, so I am pretty happy to add it to my collection. However, I already had the stamp in my collection.

 I do like the "science-y" imagery of the stamp. It has a pair, issued for the World Medical Association Assembly. Not as nice as the soil stamp, but still pretty cool, it features Hippocrates floating above a syringe. I am glad the designer chose to also write the name of the greek head somewhat randomly perched on the syringe, because otherwise I would have been a bit puzzled.

Following on from the above, I thought I would include one last stamp today. I think it fits quite nicely, both visually with the hands, and thematically with the science. It was released eight years after the soil stamp, in 1976. It celebrates 50 years of the CSIRO - the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation - which is Australia's national science agency.

I love the CSIRO stamp. I love the CSIRO. I love the stamp for featuring graph paper and a scale bar. Awesome.

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Geology and gemstones: Sunday Stamps

The challenge this week on Viridian's Sunday Stamps was to share a stamp featuring something related to geology. I get pretty excited about rocks these days, so I thought this was quite a wonderful, broad topic. Australia has issued several stamps featuring Uluru (formerly Ayers Rock), which is arguably the country's most famous geological marvel. A sandstone monolith, that turns red at dawn and dusk, Uluru is magnificent.

However, given the scope and possibilities for the theme 'geology' I was hoping that I could come up with something a little bit more exciting than the standard Uluru stamps. (That said, there is nothing 'standard' about Uluru itself. It is an awe-inspiring and magical place, and it deserves its iconic status.)

Anyhow, it turns out we don't celebrate rocks (or geology) enough in our stamps issues. I wanted to find a cool stamp with some sort of graphic representation of tectonic plates or volcanic eruptions, or something. But no. What I did find was opals and gemstones. Sort of cool, but not earth-moving, geological-time encapsulating, rock strata-depicting, mind-blowing cool. Just 'reasonably-pretty' kind of cool.

These stamps featuring the opals were issued in 1995 and were the first 'holographic' stamps issued by Australia Post. I was worried that opals wouldn't fit with the geological theme if they are minerals and not strictly speaking rocks, but it turns out they are actually classified as 'mineraloids.' And according to that most reliable source, Wikipedia, they can be found in the fissures of almost any rock.

My scientific education is sorely lacking, but from what I gather minerals are not rocks. Rocks are composed of minerals. So therefore it is fine to include opals in a post about geology, which in part is about rocks (but is not the study of rocks, because that is petrology).

Anyhow, moving right along. Opals are also Australia's national gemstone. The first time opals featured on a stamp was in 1973 when the 8c opal stamp was part of a definitive issue, which combined the bizarrely unrelated topics of 'gemstones and marine life'.

I haven't heard of chrysoprase before, but it looks a hell of a lot like Kryptonite, don't you think? Gemstones are basically pretty minerals. The earth is composed of rocks, which are composed of minerals; and whilst petrologists study rocks, and mineralogists study minerals, geologists study the earth. Minerals are cool, but volcanoes and tectonic plates are cooler. The end.