It's called Black Gold and Kentucky State Mineral.

But one current lawmaker who knows his rocks says his predecessors have made an embarrassing mislabel of the commonwealth, state rock and mineral.

And he wants to set the record straight when it comes to coal.

In 1998, the Kentucky General Assembly passed legislation to designate coal as the official state mineral.

Problem is, coal was not really a mineral in geologic terms.

It's a sedimentary organic sedimentary deposit we might refer to as Rock Creek.

Not to be outdone into two years later, the TUCKY General Assembly passed legislation that designated Kentucky Agate as official state rock, according to the Tucky Geological Survey.

The survey was not consulted prior to this designation, which is unfortunate because it is a microscopically crystalline variety of the mineral course and not a rock.

Kentucky has a state rock that is really a mineral, and a state mineral is really a rock.

Kentucky's kind of been the brunt of jokes when it comes to the rock and mineral situation.

We wanted to correct that situation.

So when when we go to science conferences, people don't say, you're from Kentucky.

You guys are the ones that don't know the difference between a rock and a mineral.

So we want to get that fixed.

I reached out to my local representative and Carolyn Stephenson, and she I said, you know, I explained the situation to her and said, you know, I'm a geologist and this is something that we've been dealing with for a long time.

How do we go about fixing this?

How do we go about writing a bill?

And she said it may have been one of the shortest bills ever, just a just a few lines, you know, to correct the rock and mineral.

So we submitted it through LLC.

And next thing I know a few years later, took a while.

But a few years later here we are having a vote on it.

What House Bill 378 does is it allows us to continue to honor these incredible substances and very unique and historical significance to our state of Kentucky.

But we just switched the designations to make it a little bit more reflect what they actually are geologically speaking.

We've been dealing with this for like 25 years.

It's, you know, it's kind of a silly thing.

Some people may think it's inconsequential, but it is important.

It is important to get the facts right when it comes to science.

And we're we're happy to to be at this point.

Mm hmm.

House Bill 378 passed in committee today.

The sponsor, Representative Al Gentry, holds a bachelor's degree in geology from the University of Louisville.

So he knows what he's talking about.