Alberta Researchers Discover 2 Minerals in a Meteorite Never Before Seen on Earth
fliptop writes:
A meteorite expert from the University of Alberta was part of a team of researchers that discovered at least two new minerals never before seen on Earth:
Chris Herd, a professor in the department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and curator of the University of Alberta's meteorite collection, was contacted a couple years ago about trying to classify a 15-tonne meteorite found in Somalia, the ninth-largest meteorite ever found.
"In the course of doing the classification - describing this new rock for science - I came across some inclusions, some potential different, interesting minerals inside the meteorite. What we've now discovered is there are at least two new minerals in this meteorite from Somalia that have never been discovered before.
[...] The two minerals came from a 70-gram piece that was sent to the U of A for classification. A potential third mineral is also being looked at.
[...] The new minerals have been named elaliite and elkinstantonite. They were identified by Locock, head of the U of A's electron microprobe laboratory, because each had been synthetically created before.
"These minerals have been synthesized in a lab by a group in France in the 1980s, so they were known to science in that regard," Herd explained, "but it doesn't get to be a called a new mineral until it's found in nature."
Also at University of Alberta's website.
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