Before Beth left, she gave me a strange-looking mineral specimen. It was made up of very tiny botryoidal crystals with an earthy luster. The color was brown for the most part, but it had this really cool purple, blue, and green iridescence. But Beth didn't tell me what it was! I've spent lot's of time in the mineralogy back room looking for a sample like that, so that I could identify it. Unfortunately, I haven't found anything. Then Kelly dropped a clue. She said there was a sample in the Geology Museum. So today I searched for it. I pretty much looked at every single specimen before I found it. Of all the possible minerals, it was siderite! The mineralogy books I have talk about botryoidal and earthy siderite, but there is no mention of the cool colors. I searched the internet and only found one picture that looked like my sample.

So I have to say, congratulations, Beth. That's one hell of a mineral specimen!