At least a team of researchers discovered it two new minerals that have never been seen before Countrythe great find it was in one meteorite of 15 tons found in Somalia, which became the ninth meteorite taller never found. Now researchers at the University of Alberta they will try to identify and name the two substances never before seen on Earth.
In this context, Chris Herd, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and curator of the meteorite collection at the University of Alberta. commented: “Every time you get a new oremeans that the geological conditions The real one, the chemistry of the rock, was different from what had been found before. Likewise, he added that the two minerals in the meteorite make the discovery even more exciting and new to science.
What did they call the new minerals?
According to what the University of Alberta released, the two minerals found are from a single 70-gram piece sent to the university. Canadian for their classification and apparently there are a third ore potential that would, however, be considered if the researchers obtained more samples of the huge meteoritecould it be possible that even more minerals are found.
This is how the two newly discovered minerals were named elaliita Y any instantonite. The first got its name from itself. meteoritenicknamed meteorite”The Alibecause it was found near the city The Aliin the region of Hiiraan in Somalia. On the other hand, Herd named the second mineral after Lindy Elkins Tantonvice president of the iASU Interplanetary Initiativeteacher of the Arizona State University School of Earth and Space Exploration and principal investigator of the next mission Psyche of the POT.
“Lindy has worked a lot on it How are the cores of planets formed?how these iron and nickel nuclei are formed, and the closest analog we have is the iron meteorites. So it made sense to name a mineral after him and acknowledge their contributions science,” explained Herd.
This is how the El Ali meteorite is classified
In collaboration with researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA for the acronym in English) and the California Institute of Technologyherd classified the El Ali meteorite like a meteor from “iron IAB complex“, one of more than 350 in that particular category. While Herd was analyzing the meteorite to classify it, he saw something that caught his eye. Also added was the experience of Andrew Locockhead of the Electron Microprobe Laboratory at the University of Alberta, who has been involved in other descriptions of new minerals, including the Hermanite-(Ce). “The first day he did some analysis, he said, ‘You’ve got at least two new minerals there,'” says Herd. “That was amazing. Most of the time you need much more work than that to say there is a new mineral”.
The fast identification of Locock was possible because earlier had been the two minerals synthetically made, for what could equalize the composition of newly discovered natural minerals with their man-made counterparts. While the meteorite’s future remains uncertain, Herd said researchers have received word that it appears to have moved China looking for a potential buyer, so it remains to be seen if additional samples can be drawn scientific purposes.
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