---

My age is showing. (Still my favorite Doctor, though!)

But we were talking about minerals today, and I cannot improve on the Mineral Cup’s own description of today’s live (at time of posting) voting event.

Here it is, with some things I added afterwards:

---

Royalty is duking it out for the first match of the quarterfinals as the Time Lord goes against the Emerald Queen of Desert! Can resilient timekeeper Zircon outlast its competition, or will the striking beauty and unusual optics of Dioptase make it a clear winner?

• Zircon: This was #1 in my Round 2 post on Matches 1-4.

  The Time Lord:

  ---

• Dioptase: This was in the Round 1, Matches 1-4 post, too.

  

---

Featured image: Tom Baker as Doctor Who, MBHDALEK, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; Eliabeth Taylor as Cleopatra, Wikimedia.

---

---