Check out crystals synthesized by bird crap

In the late 1970s, a team of researchers doing a geological survey of Australia found a kind of crystal that they’d never seen before. They grabbed some and studied it, and eventually named it moolooite. Then they found out it was made by bird crap.

These researchers were taking a geological survey of Mooloo Downs in Australia when they found long lines of quartz deposits. Quartz is pretty, but common; it happens whenever silicon-rich earth meets a pocket of oxygen. The two elements blend together into a white, shiny, semi-translucent crystal.

This quartz was a little different. In its crevices it had deposits of a strange, sandy-looking aquamarine crystals. Grabbing a sample, they analyzed the substance and found that it wasn’t completely unlike anything they’d ever known – just unlike anything made in nature. The basic structure seemed to be two alternating layers of material. One layer consisted of positively charged copper ions, while the next was a negatively charged grouping of some carbon and a lot of oxygen. Add just a little water and voila! The combination was something like what had been synthesized in various labs, but had never been shown to occur naturally.

http://blogs.kqed.org/newsfix/2013/03/12/the-bird-vs-the-bypass-tree-sitter-fights-mendocino-highway-project/