Dark Side of Matter: January 2012

Where my Wife prefers Jay King's Mine Finds from HSN, I seek out the Stranger Stuff, like what was found in Western Australia.

Wingman.

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Moon Rock Photo:

Rare beauty. Tiny bits of tranquillityite (red mass, close-up at right), a rare mineral previously known only from moon rocks and lunar meteorites, have now been found in rocks from several sites in Western Australia and may be much more common than previously presumed.

Credit: Adapted from B. Rasmussen et al., Geology (23 November 2011); © The Geological Society of America

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A mineral previously known only from moon rocks and lunar meteorites has now been found on Earth.

Researchers discovered the substance—dubbed tranquillityite after the Sea of Tranquility, where Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the Moon in July 1969— at six sites in Western Australia.

The mineral occurs only in minuscule amounts and has no economic value, but scientists say it could be used for age-dating the rocks in which it occurs.

Soon after the first Apollo astronauts returned from the moon, scientists analyzed samples of igneous rocks they had collected, known as basalts. The rocks contained three previously unknown minerals, two of which—armalcolite and pyroxferroite—were found on Earth within a decade or so.

But for the past 40 years, the third mineral, tranquillityite, hasn't been seen anywhere but in moon rocks and in meteorites blasted from the lunar surface by massive impacts.

Now, in this month's issue of Geology, Birger Rasmussen, a geologist at Curtin University in Bentley, Australia, and his colleagues report that they've finally found tranquillityite on our planet.

Link: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/01/rare-moon-mineral-found-on-earth.html?ref=hp

TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/7y26lor

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Source Abstract:

Tranquillityite: The last lunar mineral comes down to Earth

Link: http://geology.gsapubs.org/content/40/1/83.abstract

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A very good related READ on Audible is:

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam KEAN.