Round 1 Match 5

Voting for each match starts at 06:00 GMT and runs for 24 hours. Any votes received after that time will disappear into the void, having no impact on the results chart. Please vote only once per match. Your honesty is appreciated (as is your patience). While we could enact anti-cheating measures, we’d rather make the game as accessible as possible and trust our players to not ruin their own fun.

Fan Campaign Highlights

We see you campaigning for your favourite minerals! Here’s some highlights we caught across the social media platforms we’re monitoring. Please tag us or send a note if you think we missed an educational, hilarious, or catchy campaign moment. You can also catch up on conversations happening on mindat, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Spoutable.

Howelite is named for Canadian mineralogist Henry How who discovered it in NS in nodules like a white coloured turquoise. Gets Art vote for carvings & jewelry. Whewellite seems indirectly biological but has been found in hydrothermal deposits & is named for English polymath William Whewell …

[image or embed]

— Ele Willoughby (@minouette.bsky.social) Sep 5, 2024 at 10:36 AM

ocean tides. Whewell coined so many terms, including scientist (in a review of one of Mary Somerville’s books - he deemed her superior to a mere scientist “a real person of science”), physicist, catastrophism, uniformitarianism & more. He even translated Goethe’s poetry. #histsci #MinCup24 🧪🐡⚒️

[image or embed]

— Ele Willoughby (@minouette.bsky.social) Sep 5, 2024 at 10:54 AM

Whewellite gets the physics because it’s used for thermogravimetric analysis (measuring mass as temperature changes say to look at phase changes in samples). Plus Whewell himself was extraordinary, working in math, physics, geology, astronomy & more & coordinated international volunteers to study…

— Ele Willoughby (@minouette.bsky.social) Sep 5, 2024 at 10:42 AM

Perhaps my favourite match up in Round 1. Do you feel like howling of whewing??

[image or embed]

— Meghan (@megthehopeful.bsky.social) Sep 5, 2024 at 3:12 AM

Well it's neck and neck between Howlite, here seen in raw form as opposed to it's more frequent shape of beads, against the more crystalline and mysterious Whewlite, which if I say so misself, ouch. Only if it's grown in the um, human region, this one is from the earth! #MINCUP24 https://t.co/XV3O9xpAQ5 pic.twitter.com/TPYnbVwRsd

— Valenta de Regil (@RMVdeR) September 5, 2024

Why am I voting for the borosilicate #Howlite? Boron is not an essential nutrient, but it is a prebiotic element that [mediates the synthesis of RNA]. The timing of borate precipitation in Earth’s oceans is relevant to the origins of life. Look at those starry beige crystals! 🤩🧪⚒️ #Howlite #MinCup24

[image or embed]

— Dee Gardner (@glacierpique.bsky.social) Sep 5, 2024 at 4:48 PM

Howlite is so boring on its own it's often dyed as imitation turquoise 🥱

Whewellite on the other hand is a rare oxalate organic mineral that even some organisms can produce! https://t.co/ixfO8aYAPm pic.twitter.com/ONHVpyHhkn

— Suq (@SuqAta8) September 5, 2024

New-to-me minerals but when I read whewellite could be related to fungal activity, I was sold!! 🍄‍🟫❤️ "Also described as a product of fungal activity...leaf litter and soils in forests; also formed by lichen on various rocks..." (Mindat). #TeamWhewellite #VoteWhewellite

— Suzanne Hedderly (@TweetyPAK) September 5, 2024

#Whewellite is an oxalate which can crystallize in urine, so can we make a pee vs poo match with #ammineite? Pretty please? pic.twitter.com/TyP4ZhKSAC

— Kerstin Neuhaus (@MicrotoPico) September 5, 2024

Now it’s time to recruit more players! Chat in the comments or on the social media platform of your choice (tag us and use #MinCup24 when you can). Everyone deserves to learn more about minerals, choose favourites, and enjoy.

time remaining