The Sixties brought us drugs, protests, and paneling. The Seventies let these things endure, grow and become a classic. Today everyone is flying through grade school, junior high, and high school with some kind of over the counter drug of some sort. But building materials took a turn when people began to use gypsum instead of paneling to brighten up their homes and offices. Paneling was great if one was trying to create some kind of log cabin in the suburbs. The outside of their home looked like every other house on the block but the inside looked as if the woods were in the room. Gypsum ended all of that. Gypsum is a mineral that was taken from our dear mother earth and pressed between two sheets of paper for use in the construction of new houses and referred to as sheetrock. Paneling was replaced by drywall (sheetrock) and building was never the same again after that. Drywall was invented in the early 1900's but never really took off until the hippies were getting tired Governmental acid. Somewhere in the Eighties, Gypsum had surpassed paneling as the number one wall material and still is to this day. I've spent years working while going to school and construction was what paved the way to greener pastures. As a contractor I've carried, ordered, screwed in place, mudded over, textured, and painted miles of Gypsum. Gypsum is a lot like Anhydrite. They have the same chemical composition but Gypsum bends a little bit and has water inside; Anhydrite has no water. This is one of the reasons that it works so well in construction. There is a very interesting kind of Gypsum called Enhydros. Enhydros have water trapped inside of them. When you pick up an Enhydro you can see a little bubble floating around in it when you shake it. This kind of Gypsum is very rare and sought after by collectors. Sometimes sand gets caught inside the Gypsum crystals like water does. The sand gives the Gypsum a brown or gray color. Gypsum's composition is Hydrous calcium sulfate and it's chemical formula is CaSO4 · 2H2O. It comes in clear, white, brown, green, tan, orange, pink, yellow, and red. We have, as a society, used gypsum for thousands of years in different forms. One of it's earliest names was Alabaster and used by the Assyrians. For years is was painted on cloth and used to make statues and various forms of art. Today, we find Gypsum in powder form everywhere. We have it in some tooth pastes, paint, car windows, fertilizer, and plaster of Paris to name a few. Plaster of Paris is a lot of fun. My mother used to organize it for me when I was a kid. It is a powder and one just adds water and sculpts away. When it dries it goes back to its crystalline form. But it's most common use is still building materials today. As I stated above, Gypsum has water in it. When replacing wooden paneling board with Gypsum board the chances of fire decrease. It takes a while for the water to leave the Gypsum when the building catches on fire and then the crystalline form of the dried out Gypsum doesn't burn very well. Gypsum drywall has become one of the greatest inventions over the past one hundred years. Drywall has also changed a lot since it's invention. It has gotten lighter, It has become more fire retardant, when mixing it with other ingredients it has become stronger, and moisture-resistant. Today there are studies to find new ways of recycling old drywall. As it is high in calcium, drywall makes a great fertilizer when grounded up and blended in with the rest of the lawn. Around 1.7 million tons of gypsum drywall waste material was deposited in land-fills in the United States in the Nighties. It is always easy to sell a product that is in demand but dealing with the waste material is something that mankind has never been real good at. It seems that the problem must first become a big problem before we ever start thinking about the damage. And only then, if we can figure out a way to profit from recycling the waste, do we get organized. But we are getting there as a society. I believe in our future even though it may look rather bleak today. We are an intelligent species. We have taken an abundant mineral and found many uses for it. I know that new ideas will come as far as Gypsum is concerned and I know that we will find constructive ways to deal with the waste that those ideas may cause. http://www.madehow.com/Volume-2/Drywall.html#ixzz3CAS8mdNg http://www.minerals.net/mineral/gypsum.aspx#sthash.fqYXILvN.dpuf