h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Is there any other colours of onyx other than black?

Yes, indeed. Black onyx is the stone used for jewellery - at least, I've never seen onyx jewellery in any other colour. However, my parents had some onyx ornaments that were white and brown (the brown was sort of swirly and banded). I think they also had one ornament that was a very pale green.

Hmm, nice.
I love that haematite stuff, too. Is that the spiky purply stuff, right? You've got to wonder what makes someone crack open those dull, ordinary looking rocks- how do they know there'll be all that trippy crystal stuff inside?
So what's jade?

The 'spikey purple stuff' is amethyst, another favourite of mine (must add it to the list). Haematite (or hematite, if you're American) is a glossy, very dark grey or black. When I say glossy, I mean you can see your face in it.

Jade comes in a variety of colours. The most common is mid-green, but I've also seen it in white, yellow, red and purple.

Wow! I always thought jade was black...you know your rocks, girl!
So what do you call the guys who spend their days cracking open ordinary looking-rocks on the off-chance there's spiky purple stuff inside? Or how do they tell from the outside that there will be crystal inside, because every crystal I've seen has looked really boring on the outside...?
I love imagining that one day in millions of years time some person...actually, no, that's unlikely...some being will dig up a rock, crack it in half, see a Bebel Matman fossil and go

The lumps of rock with crystals inside are called 'geodes', and I guess the people who collect them could loosely be called geologists, or possibly gemmologists. (Yes, that is a word. It's somebody who studies gems.) They know whether the rock is likely to have crystals inside because of what the rock is (it may look ordinary or boring to you, but they know all about it) and where they found it.

If you want some future being to find your fossil then:

1. Don't have yourself cremated.
2. Have your body dumped in a river or beach where there is a lot of mud deposited on a regular basis. It's about the only way I know that fossils are formed, but there's probably a law against it.

I suppose it would be a better idea to be buried right in the middle of a freezing wasteland like Antarctica, so that
a) Freezing=preservation, right?
and
b) Your body is less likely to avoid getting blown to pieces in the forthcoming nuclear wars which will obliterate all civilised/populated places to bits?

I think you'll find the phrase is "they know aaaaaaaaaaaaaaall about it."

Being buried in Antarctica is one option. Whether anybody will ever find you is an entirely different matter. A lot of people are aware that the ice covering the Arctic shifts, but few seem to be aware that the ice covering the Antarctic also shifts. Captain Oates (one of Scott's fellow 'explorers' on the attempt on the South Pole) just stepped outside the tent and walked a short distance. His body has never been found. Similarly, when the tent containing the bodies of Scott and his remaining companions was found, rather than bury them their friends just dropped the tent to cover them and allowed nature to take its course. The site *was* marked, but it soon got covered in snow and, after years of shifting ice, nobody knows where it is any more. Which, IMHO, is just as it should be.

Mind you, there's a place in Antarctica called the Dry Valley, because it gets less precipitation than anywhere else on Earth, AFAIK. It's famous for a load of 'mummified' seals - they're really freeze-dried, rather than mummified, but they're still pretty well preserved. If you want to be found, you could have your remains deposited there.

I think I'd rather not be found for a good few million years, not until life on Earth has been wiped out and re-evolved a few times and finding a human body will be a bit of a novelty for them.

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