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Dr Katie Strang
@palaeokatie.bsky.social
Geologist, palaeontologist & petrographer 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Engagement for the Scottish Geology Trust & Director of #ScotGeolFest. Researcher of carboniferous coprolites and historic lime mortars. Museums. Graveyard geology. 🌈 she/her
1.2k followers47 following81 posts
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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

The Scottish Geology Trust will be at the Fife Show tomorrow from 8:30 - 5pm, come say hello! We’ll have a selection of awesome rocks & fossils, including pebbles from the Devonian conglomerates on the Angus coast - like this veiny epidote beauty 🖤

Photo of a hand palm side up holding a sliced pebble from the ORS conglomerates exposed on the Angus coast. The pebble contains abundant veinlets of epidote in a dark grey to black coloured meta-basaltic matrix. The epidote veins are sinuous and cross cut one another and are pistachio green in colour.
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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

I love the diversity in materials, colours & textures you find in colliery bing. Older spoil heaps often contained a high % of coal & wasn’t well consolidated, allowing air to circulate. Add in heat from oxidising pyrite & you have the perfect conditions for burning bing & baked rocks 🔥

Photo of a hand palm side up holding a piece of Carboniferous shale which has been baked in a bing fire. Bing is a Scots word for a spoil heap or waste pile left over from mining and other industrial processes. The shale has greyish blue coloured patches which appear slightly shiny due to residual oil. There are also extensive areas of red-orange colouration due to the shale being subjected to high temperatures and there’s also significant iron staining due to the oxidation and leaching of iron bearing minerals like pyrite present in the waste.
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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

I’ve had both my palms gone over twice, doesn’t hurt!

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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

Yes..

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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

Hello, my hair is now matching this cavansite on stilbite from India #DyingMyHairToMatchRocks

Selfie of Katie sat in front of a maroon coloured door. Her hair is bright blue at the front and white blonde at the back.
Image from rocks.com - The Arkenstone. Showing a close up of vibrant blue cavansite on stilbite from Wagholi Quarry, Maharashtra, India. Dimensions: 7.7 x 7.3 x 7.2 cm. Ex. Greg Kitt collection. The cavansite shows radial arranged clusters of elongated crystals and minor isolated crystals. The blue contrasts well against the white stilbite.
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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

The Carboniferous mussel-bands are characterised by their rich assemblage of non-marine bivalves. They are widely recognised for their importance in biostratigraphy and have been used extensively throughout the midland valley for coal seam correlation 🖤 #FossilFriday

Photo of a hand holding a cut slice of upper Carboniferous mussel-band from the Scottish Coal Measures of Fife, roughly ~310 million years old. The rock is an ironstone (siderite) which is fine grained and black in colour (reddish brown when oxidised/weathered). There are an abundance of white fragments which are the disarticulated remains of non-marine Lamellibranch bivalves. The shells show grading and evidence of flow alignment, and occasionally show imbrication - suggesting they were deposited by a flow event, such as a flash flood, which may have carried the shells a considerable distance. The rock has been cut using a rock saw, and the bivalves appear at random orientations which creates interesting shapes and patterns in the rock. The white calcite of the shells contrasts well against the black matrix.
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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

My nose is currently lovely & swollen because I finally got my high nostril piercings done! I hate how my glasses constantly slide off my face while I’m looking at rocks, & I’ve always thought these would be an ideal solution (once they’re healed though!) 😂

Selfie of Katie taken in an old quarry. She’s lifting a pair of sunglasses off her head and you can see new high nostril piercings. Her nose is super swollen, especially the right side (left in photo) which has swollen way more and looks ridiculous haha.
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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

Hello, here’s a thin section of a 330 million year old fossil jobby 💩 #ThinSectionThursday

Photo showing a thin section slide of a Carboniferous coprolite on matrix from Fife. To make a thin section, the rock is cut super thin, mounted on a glass slide and ground down to 0.03mm thickness (also occasionally impregnated with resin) - this means it can be analysed using a petrographic (polarising) microscope, where we can use the optical properties of minerals to aid in their ID, as well as getting detailed information on the microstructure.
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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

Here’s some beautiful pink and white calcite slickenfibres on faulted carboniferous limestone for #MineralMonday 🖤

Photo showing a close up of a fault plane in some greyish blue coloured Carboniferous limestone with fibrous calcite growth. The calcite shows alternating stripes of colour between white and pastel pink. Slickenfibres form due to the fibrous growth of minerals (like quartz and calcite etc) during fault movement parallel to the direction of slip, therefore they can be useful palaeostress indicators. Faults usually form during periods of tectonic activity like earthquakes, volcanism and orogenies etc. There’s an index finger at the bottom centre with tattooed scale bar - lines and dots 5mm apart. Blackhall limestone, LLF, Fife.
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DKpalaeokatie.bsky.social

Current pocket agate 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🖤

Photo of two fingers holding a piece of Scottish agate from Dunure showing a cut unpolished face. The agate displays concentric angular banding which resembles the fortification of a castle viewed from above. The bands are subtle and range in colour from red to orange, white and purpley. There is significant red coloured staining towards the outer edges due to haematite remobilisation, along with small red flecks of haematite scattered throughout.
Photo showing a close up of the agate in the previous photo. The image shows an area of concentric angular banding forming a sharp point in the centre of the photo. The bands range in colour mostly through red to orange to white. Haematite remobilisation has resulted in red coloured staining and the presence of tiny wee red flecks of haematite throughout the agate.
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DK
Dr Katie Strang
@palaeokatie.bsky.social
Geologist, palaeontologist & petrographer 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Engagement for the Scottish Geology Trust & Director of #ScotGeolFest. Researcher of carboniferous coprolites and historic lime mortars. Museums. Graveyard geology. 🌈 she/her
1.2k followers47 following81 posts
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