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Rockwatch (watch)
The RockWatch or Rock Watch was a trademarked brand of wristwatch by Tissot with a case essentially made of stone, initially alpine granite from the Grisons, Ticino, and Valais cantons of Switzerland. It was designed by Robert Mazlo and first introduced to the U.S. market in December 1985 and in Switzerland March 1986.Tissot claims it was the world's first wristwatch with a case made of natural stone. The cavities for the movement and dial face were milled from both sides, making the dial an integral part of the case. The straps were fixed to the back plate on both ends thus preventing mechanical stress to the stone. Later versions of the watch used different stones from various mountainous areas around the world including alabaster, aventurine (Brazil), basalt (Scandinavia), blue lace agate, blue sodalite (Brazil), lapis lazuli (Italy), magnesite, picture jasper (Kalahari desert), pink rhodonite (Australia), quartz, and thulite. Some pieces received decorative dial inserts suc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tissot RockWatch R151 Dark Green, Front
Tissot SA () is a Swiss watchmaker. The company was founded in Le Locle, Switzerland by Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son, Charles-Émile Tissot, in 1853. After several mergers and name changes, the group which Tissot SA belonged to was renamed the Swatch Group in 1998. Tissot is not associated with Mathey-Tissot, another Swiss watchmaking firm. History Independent company Tissot was founded in 1853 by Charles-Félicien Tissot and his son Charles-Émile Tissot in the Swiss city of Le Locle, in the Neuchâtel canton of the Jura Mountains area. The father and son team worked as a casemaker (Charles-Félicien Tissot) and watchmaker (Charles-Emile). His son having expressed an interest in watchmaking from a young age. The two turned their house at the time into a small 'factory'. Charles-Emile Tissot left for Russia in 1858 and succeeded in selling their savonnette pocket watches across the Russian Empire. In 2021, the company is marketinLe Locle Powermatic 80 which has a wat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alabaster
Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use it in a wider sense that includes varieties of two different minerals: the fine-grained massive type of gypsum and the fine-grained banded type of calcite.''More about alabaster and travertine'', brief guide explaining the different use of these words by geologists, archaeologists, and those in the stone trade. Oxford University Museum of Natural History, 2012/ref> Geologists define alabaster only as the gypsum type. Chemically, gypsum is a Water of crystallization, hydrous sulfur, sulfate of calcium, while calcite is a carbonate of calcium. The two types of alabaster have similar properties. They are usually lightly colored, translucent, and soft stones. They have been used throughout history primarily for carving decorative artifacts."Grove": R. W. Sanderson and Francis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by area in Oceania and the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, sixth-largest country. Australia is the oldest, flattest, and driest inhabited continent, with the least fertile soils. It is a Megadiverse countries, megadiverse country, and its size gives it a wide variety of landscapes and climates, with Deserts of Australia, deserts in the centre, tropical Forests of Australia, rainforests in the north-east, and List of mountains in Australia, mountain ranges in the south-east. The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately Early human migrations#Nearby Oceania, 65,000 years ago, during the Last Glacial Period, last i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhodonite
Rhodonite is a manganese silicate minerals, inosilicate, (Mn, Fe, Mg, Ca)SiO3 and member of the pyroxenoid group of minerals, crystallizing in the triclinic system. It commonly occurs as cleavable to compact masses with a rose-red color (the name comes from the Greek ῥόδος ''rhodos'', rosy), often tending to brown because of surface redox, oxidation. Rhodonite crystals often have a thick tabular crystal habit, habit, but are rare. It has a perfect, prismatic Cleavage (crystal), cleavage, almost at right angles. The Mohs scale of mineral hardness, hardness is 5.5–6.5, and the specific gravity is 3.4–3.7; lustre (mineralogy), luster is vitreous, being less frequently pearly on cleavage surfaces. The manganese is often partly replaced by iron, magnesium, calcium, and sometimes zinc, which may sometimes be present in considerable amounts; a greyish-brown variety containing as much as 20% of calcium oxide is called ''bustamite''; ''fowlerite'' is a zinciferous variety containi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kalahari Desert
The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal desert, whose name is of Khoekhoegowab origin and means "vast place". Etymology ''Kalahari'' is derived from the Tswana word ''Kgala'', meaning "the great thirst", or ''Kgalagadi'', meaning "a waterless place"; the Kalahari has vast areas covered by red sand without any permanent surface water. History The Kalahari Desert was not always a dry desert. The fossil flora and fauna from Gcwihaba Cave in Botswana indicates that the region was much wetter and cooler at least from 30 to 11 thousand BP (before present) especially after 17,500 BP. Geography Drainage of the desert is by dry black valleys, seasonally inundated pans and the large salt pans of the Makgadikgadi Pan in Botswana and Etosha Pan in Namibia. The only permanent river, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Picture Jasper
Jasper, an aggregate of microgranular quartz and/or cryptocrystalline chalcedony and other mineral phases,Kostov, R. I. 2010. Review on the mineralogical systematics of jasper and related rocks. – Archaeometry Workshop, 7, 3, 209-213PDF/ref> is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. The common red color is due to iron(III) inclusions. Jasper breaks with a smooth surface and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone. It can be highly polished and is used for items such as vases, seals, and snuff boxes. The specific gravity of jasper is typically 2.5 to 2.9. Jaspillite is a banded-iron-formation rock that often has distinctive bands of jasper. Etymology and history The name means "spotted or speckled stone," and is derived via Old French ''jaspre'' (variant of Anglo-Norman ''jaspe'') and Latin ''iaspidem'' (nom. ''iaspis'') from Greek ἴασπις ''iaspis'' (feminine noun), from an Afroasiatic language (cf. Heb ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Magnesite
Magnesite is a mineral with the chemical formula (magnesium carbonate). Iron, manganese, cobalt, and nickel may occur as admixtures, but only in small amounts. Occurrence Magnesite occurs as veins in and an alteration product of ultramafic rocks, serpentinite and other magnesium rich rock types in both contact and regional metamorphic terrains. These magnesites are often cryptocrystalline and contain silica in the form of opal or chert. Magnesite is also present within the regolith above ultramafic rocks as a secondary carbonate within soil and subsoil, where it is deposited as a consequence of dissolution of magnesium-bearing minerals by carbon dioxide in groundwaters. Isotopic structure: clumped isotope The recent advancement in the field of stable isotope geochemistry is the study of isotopic structure of minerals and molecules. This requires study of molecules with high resolutions looking at bonding scenario (how heavy isotopes are bonded to each other)- leading to kno ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical region. Italy is also considered part of Western Europe, and shares land borders with France, Switzerland, Austria, Slovenia and the enclaved microstates of Vatican City and San Marino. It has a territorial exclave in Switzerland, Campione. Italy covers an area of , with a population of over 60 million. It is the third-most populous member state of the European Union, the sixth-most populous country in Europe, and the tenth-largest country in the continent by land area. Italy's capital and largest city is Rome. Italy was the native place of many civilizations such as the Italic peoples and the Etruscans, while due to its central geographic location in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, the country has also historically been home ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lapis Lazuli
Lapis lazuli (; ), or lapis for short, is a deep-blue metamorphic rock used as a semi-precious stone that has been prized since antiquity for its intense color. As early as the 7th millennium BC, lapis lazuli was mined in the Sar-i Sang mines,David Bomford and Ashok Roy, ''A Closer Look- Colour'' (2009), National Gallery Company, London, () in Shortugai, and in other mines in Badakhshan province in northeast Afghanistan. Lapis lazuli artifacts, dated to 7570 BC, have been found at Bhirrana, which is the oldest site of Indus Valley civilisation. Lapis was highly valued by the Indus Valley Civilisation (7570–1900 BC). Lapis beads have been found at Neolithic burials in Mehrgarh, the Caucasus, and as far away as Mauritania. It was used in the funeral mask of Tutankhamun (1341–1323 BC). By the end of the Middle Ages, lapis lazuli began to be exported to Europe, where it was ground into powder and made into ultramarine, the finest and most expensive of all blue pigments. Ultra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sodalite
Sodalite ( ) is a tectosilicate mineral with the formula , with royal blue varieties widely used as an wikt:ornamental, ornamental gemstone. Although massive sodalite samples are opaque, crystals are usually transparent to translucent. Sodalite is a member of the sodalite group with hauyne, nosean, lazurite and tugtupite. First discovered by Europeans in 1811 in the Ilimaussaq intrusive complex in Greenland, sodalite did not become important as an ornamental stone until 1891 when vast deposits of fine material were discovered in Ontario, Canada. Structure The structure of sodalite was first studied by Linus Pauling in 1930. It is a cubic mineral of space group P3n (:Minerals in space group 218, space group 218) which consists of an aluminosilicate cage network with Na+ cations and chloride anions in the interframework. (There may be small amounts of other cations and anions instead.) This framework forms a zeolite cage structure. Each unit cell has two cavities, which have alm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agate
Agate () is a common rock formation, consisting of chalcedony and quartz as its primary components, with a wide variety of colors. Agates are primarily formed within volcanic and metamorphic rocks. The ornamental use of agate was common in Ancient Greece, in assorted jewelry and in the seal stones of Greek warriors, while bead necklaces with pierced and polished agate date back to the 3rd millennium BCE in the Indus Valley civilisation. Etymology The stone was given its name by Theophrastus, a Greek philosopher and naturalist, who discovered the stone along the shore line of the Dirillo River or Achates ( grc, Ἀχάτης) in Sicily, sometime between the 4th and 3rd centuries BCE. Formation and properties Agate minerals have the tendency to form on or within pre-existing rocks, creating difficulties in accurately determining their time of formation. Their host rocks have been dated to have formed as early as the Archean Eon. Agates are most commonly found as nodules wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scandinavia
Scandinavia; Sámi languages: /. ( ) is a subregion#Europe, subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, ''Scandinavia'' most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer more narrowly to the Scandinavian Peninsula (which excludes Denmark but includes part of Finland), or more broadly to include all of Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. The geography of the region is varied, from the Norwegian fjords in the west and Scandinavian mountains covering parts of Norway and Sweden, to the low and flat areas of Denmark in the south, as well as archipelagos and lakes in the east. Most of the population in the region live in the more temperate southern regions, with the northern parts having long, cold, winters. The region became notable during the Viking Age, when Scandinavian peoples participated in large scale raiding, conquest, colonization and trading mostl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
