An unexpected discovery in the meteorite: two new minerals

A group of researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada discovered two new minerals in a meteorite found in Somalia. When the 15,000-ton meteorite hit is not clear, but it is the ninth largest meteorite ever found.

Canadian researchers were given access to a 70-gram disk for classifying space rocks. Their conclusion was that it was a so-called IAB-type iron meteorite, one of more than 350 meteorites in that particular class.

During the course of the work, Professor Chris Hurd saw something that caught his attention. He enlisted the help of the university’s Electron Probe Microscopy Laboratory, where instrumentation bombarded the disc with an electron beam and analyzed the X-rays it emitted.

On the first day of the analysis, two minerals that do not occur naturally on Earth were discovered.

– phenomenon. It usually takes a lot more work than that to be able to prove the existence of a new mineral, says Chris Hurd. press release.

The identification process is so fast because the two minerals had been created synthetically before, this made it possible to match the composition of the two newly discovered natural minerals to their man-made counterparts.

A third unknown mineral

The researchers are now continuing to examine the mineral to increase knowledge of the geological conditions that prevailed when the meteorite was once formed.

– When you find a new mineral, it means that the geological conditions, the chemistry of the rocks, were different from what was discovered before, says Chris Hurd.

One of the minerals was named elaliite, after the El Ali meteorite, which in turn was named after the town of the same name near the site of its discovery. The other mineral is named Elkinstantonite, after Lindy Elkins-Tanton, chief scientist for the upcoming NASA Expedition to the asteroid Psyche.

The researchers also suspect that a third, hitherto unknown mineral may be hiding in the 70-gram tablet.