"Lao Zou, your ambition is quite big, if the Chinese people fall in love with the mineral crystal, it is completely possible to achieve this huge population base, but I don't understand, Chinese should be playing Chinese traditional culture, isn't it good to play strange stones?

Kowloon asked, puzzled.

"That said, playing with mineral crystals is not the preserve of foreigners. ”

Lao Zou replied, and then changed the conversation and asked Jiulong a scientific question, "Have you thought about where you came from and where are you going?"

Jiulong really didn't think about it so much, he had only heard that he was a monkey before, and then a Peking ape, and then he didn't know what to do, and he wanted to hear about it.

Lao Zou replied in the affirmative, the exploration of nature has made more and more people join the ranks of collecting mineral crystals, fossils and meteorites.

Curiosity about the natural world and the unknown may have been the initial motivation for these science lovers to fall in love with fossilized meteorites, and it was one of the ways they explored the unknown.

Compared with all kinds of large and small mining exhibitions held in full swing in Western countries, the longest China Mining Exhibition has only been held for more than a dozen sessions, and the quality is uneven, and the development is difficult.

Playing with mineralization is different from the traditional culture of stone appreciation.

The national standard for ornamental stones divides the ornamental stones into five categories: rocks, mineral crystals, fossils, meteorites, and others.

Our country is the source of rock appreciation, and it is recorded in the "Yu Gong" of the Warring States Period.

The traditional four famous stones - Taihu Lake stone, Lingbi stone, Kun stone, British stone and its Song Dynasty Mi Fu four methods of stone appreciation - wrinkle, thin, leakage, through has long been spread at home and abroad.

Compared with the long history of Chinese literati stone appreciation culture, Chinese interest in scientific stone appreciation such as mineral crystals, fossils, and meteorites has just emerged, and the "play" of the two can be said to be completely different.

The traditional Chinese stone appreciation culture emphasizes quality, color, shape, pattern and rhyme, and mainly plays "what is like", which does not require high scientific knowledge.

Mineral crystals, fossils, meteorites and other scientific appreciation stones emphasize chemical composition, physical properties, generation environment, and scientific value, mainly playing "what", which requires higher scientific knowledge, so the threshold is higher.

Lao Zou now has a very famous name, he is the president of the Shanghai Mineral and Fossil Research Association, so his introduction is very representative.

He said that at present, the main home of scientific stone appreciation is mainly in the West, and the number of people who play mining, chemical and meteorite in China is still a small number after all, at most tens of thousands of people, compared with tens of millions in the West, it is like a rarity.

"Western countries collect, study mineral crystals, fossils, meteorites are as common as we play with stones, all people can play, their children have been enlightened in this area at a very young age, whether it is schools, museums, science and technology museums or even supermarkets have a lot of mineral fossil displays, Japanese supermarkets can buy mineral specimens, fish fossils.

"I think that the number of people who enjoy science is the vane of citizens' scientific literacy, and learning to appreciate and collect mineralized meteorites is the best science popularization activity. Lao Zou said.

According to Lao Zou, there are several types of people in China to play science and appreciate stones, one is indeed out of their own like, his collection is not for scientific research, but where the interest is, they collect more things, all the varieties, there is a sense of achievement, want to collect more and more complete.

There is also a group of researchers, who collect them for research, to publish academic articles, and to collect these mineral fossils when they find them meaningful.

Of course, it cannot be ruled out that there is a category of people who collect for money, that is, the so-called speculators.

Driven by profits, there are now more and more fake ore crystals and meteorites on the market.

Western universities and scientific research institutions will sell some mineralized meteorites, but ordinary collectors mainly obtain these scientific stones through large-scale international exhibitions.

"The mining exhibition in Western countries has been quite mature, there are weekly mining exhibitions, the Tucson Mining Exhibition in the United States, the Denver Mining Exhibition, the Munich Mining Exhibition in Germany, and the Sainte-Marie Mining Exhibition in France have all been more than half a century, and we did not establish the first such exhibition until 2007 - Shanghai Mineral and Fossil Exhibition. ”

Speaking of mineral crystal collection, the rise of domestic is much later than that of foreign countries.

As early as the early 16th century, mineral collecting emerged in Europe among royalty and aristocrats.

By the middle of the 19th century, it became popular in Europe and the United States.

In China, with the increasing popularity of ornamental stone and gemstone collections, mineral crystals have only begun to enter the field of vision of collectors in recent years.

"Lao Zou, you have talked so much, I just want to ask, what is Ore Crystal?"

Kowloon was thinking, no matter what you play, you have to figure out the concept.

Lao Zou replied: "Mineral crystals are clusters of single mineral crystals that grow in cracks or cavities in rocks, some are single mineral crystals of the same kind, and some are composed of several different mineral crystals.

"There is a lot of intersection between mineral crystals and ornamental stones and gemstones.

"For example, malachite, turquoise, grape agate and other main stones in ornamental stones, these are one of the mineral crystals.

"In gemstones, ruby sapphires, emeralds, tanzanite, opals, tourmalines, etc., the rough stones are mineral crystals. ”

"Where do you start?"

Kowloon asked.

Lao Zou introduced, the appreciation of minerals, and our traditional stone appreciation is completely different, it mainly talks about whether the variety is rare, such as calcite, crystal belongs to the public varieties, peacock blue, emerald, aquamarine, tanzanite, etc. are relatively scarce varieties.

In addition to the composition, but also look at its color, minerals are won by color, the color should be relatively bright, the transparency should be high, there are no impurities, no cracks;

Third, it depends on the combination.

The coexistence of minerals in space is called combination, combined minerals are often more ornamental in form and color than single minerals, some minerals themselves are not precious, but when several elements are gathered together, they tend to become high-quality products;

"Lao Zou, I just saw the Russian iron meteorite, can you talk more about the topic of meteorites?"

Jiulong was wondering if he would be able to pick it up in his hometown since he was a visitor from outside the world, so he was more interested in this topic, after all, if he couldn't pick up this kind of stone, it would be too difficult to find it in other places.

Lao Zou smiled: "This meteorite is also the main item of my collection, so I will briefly introduce it." ”

In terms of meteorite collections, the first and rare to judge meteorites is also the most precious, among which Martian meteorites and lunar meteorites are the most precious.

Meteorites can be divided into three categories: stony meteorites, iron meteorites, and stony-iron meteorites.

Among these three categories, iron meteorites account for about 3% of the total, stony meteorites account for about 93%, and the number of stony-iron meteorites is the least, accounting for only about 1%-2%, so from the perspective of meteorite collection, stony-iron meteorites are also the most precious.