Steve's Nature Quiz #21

Nature isn't just about flowers and animals, it's about the soil and rocks and everything else that allows them to exist. This week we met up with Gypsum but which city is most associated with this rock?

a) Beijing
b) Sao Paolo
c) Paris

Gypsum, Chrysopigi. east Crete

Gypsum is used to make plaster, as used in artistic molds, construction and most famously for plaster casts when setting broken bones. Although plaster was probably first made by the Egyptians for architectural purposes and then taken up by the Greeks (gypsum is Greek for plaster) a large deposit was discovered near Montmartre, Paris in the 1600s and calcined gypsum (which involves heating it to a very high temperature and then grinding it to a fine white powder) has been known as Plaster-of-Paris ever since.

For more fascinating insights into the natural world follow the #CreteNature blog