It's pictures of these kind of gems that makes me want to model in HO. As an N scaler, I envy some of things that can be done in HO scale from a weathering standpoint. I know Tom is going to chime in and say you can do some of the same things in N scale, but it is harder.
The skill to have a vision (or photo) and translate it into a model that you can not tell from the photo is a model is amazing.
Thanks for the update!