It looks to be like a metallic tech geek something or other; but really it's Bismuth. Bismuth; a cool, geek/tech, metallic, and strange, usually lab created element that is grown in all kinds of odd shapes and reflect very different metallic colors. This is a new find for me and one that is just striking and a very eclectic addition to our Fossil-Mineral-Rock Collection. These are very heavy and fragile eggs in a purified form of bismuth, artificially grown and lab created. The crystals grow at a very rapid pace forming very unusual and interesting shapes. The colors are natural and form from an iridescent tarnish that shows many refractive colors upon exposure to air. The edges of the crystals are fully developed, but the interior spaces are hollowed, which causes the step lattice formation. Because of their rapid rate of growth and brilliant colors, no two are ever exactly alike.
Here's a little about Bismuth......Bismuth is very interesting and unusual, it is a metallic chemical element which is classified among the group of elements colloquially known as 'poor elements' in the periodic table. The element has a number of uses, making it common in industrial applications. In addition to occurring in various minerals, bismuth also can be found in pure form in nature, though very rarely.
When it is pure, bismuth is white with a reddish tinge, and sometimes almost pink. It is a crystalline chemical structure which makes it extremely brittle, and it is rather unique among the elements for having a liquid state which is more dense than its solid state; water shares this interesting property. On the periodic table of elements, bismuth is identified as Bi, and has an atomic number of 83.
Bismuth, the name for the element comes from the German Wismuth, which means derived from webe Masse, which means “white mass”. The element was known in the ancient world, although it was sometimes confused with tin and lead. By the 1400s, people had begun to suspect that bismuth was a distinct chemical element, but it was not isolated until 1753; Claud Groffroy is typically given credit for the identification of bismuth as an element.
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