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Troilite
Troilite is a rare iron sulfide mineral with the simple formula of FeS. It is the iron-rich endmember of the pyrrhotite group. Pyrrhotite has the formula Fe(1-x)S (x = 0 to 0.2) which is iron deficient. As troilite lacks the iron deficiency which gives pyrrhotite its characteristic magnetism, troilite is non-magnetic. Troilite can be found as a native mineral on Earth but is more abundant in meteorites, in particular, those originating from the Moon and Mars. It is among the minerals found in samples of the meteorite that struck Russia in Chelyabinsk on February 15th, 2013. Uniform presence of troilite on the Moon and possibly on Mars has been confirmed by the Apollo, Viking and Phobos space probes. The relative intensities of isotopes of sulfur are rather constant in meteorites as compared to the Earth minerals, and therefore troilite from Canyon Diablo meteorite is chosen as the international sulfur isotope ratio standard, the Canyon Diablo Troilite (CDT). Structure Troil ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrrhotite
Pyrrhotite is an iron sulfide mineral with the formula Fe(1-x)S (x = 0 to 0.2). It is a nonstoichiometric variant of FeS, the mineral known as troilite. Pyrrhotite is also called magnetic pyrite, because the color is similar to pyrite and it is weakly magnetic. The magnetism decreases as the iron content increases, and troilite is non-magnetic.Vaughan, D. J.; Craig, J. R. "Mineral Chemistry of Metal Sulfides" Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 1978. . Structure Pyrrhotite exists as a number of polytypes of hexagonal or monoclinic crystal symmetry; several polytypes often occur within the same specimen. Their structure is based on the NiAs unit cell. As such, Fe occupies an octahedral site and the sulfide centers occupy trigonal prismatic sites. Materials with the NiAs structure often are non-stoichiometric because they lack up to 1/8th fraction of the metal ions, creating vacancies. One of such structures is pyrrhotite-4C (Fe7S8). Here "4" indicates that iron vacan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canyon Diablo (meteorite)
The Canyon Diablo meteorite refers to the many fragments of the asteroid that created Meteor Crater (also called Barringer Crater), Arizona, United States. Meteorites have been found around the crater rim, and are named for nearby Canyon Diablo, which lies about three to four miles west of the crater. History The impactor fell about 50,000 years ago. Initially known and used by pre-historic Native Americans, Canyon Diablo meteorites have been collected and studied by the scientific community since the 19th century. Meteor Crater, from the late 19th to the early 20th century, was the center of a long dispute over the origin of craters that showed little evidence of volcanism. That debate was largely settled by the early 1930s, thanks to work by Daniel M. Barringer, F.R. Moulton, Harvey Harlow Nininger, and Eugene Shoemaker. In 1953, Clair Cameron Patterson measured ratios of the lead isotopes in samples of the meteorite. Through U-Pb radiometric dating, a refined estima ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reference Materials For Stable Isotope Analysis
Isotopic reference materials are compounds (solids, liquids, gasses) with well-defined isotopic compositions and are the ultimate sources of accuracy in mass spectrometric measurements of isotope ratios. Isotopic references are used because mass spectrometers are highly fractionating. As a result, the isotopic ratio that the instrument measures can be very different from that in the sample's measurement. Moreover, the degree of instrument fractionation changes during measurement, often on a timescale shorter than the measurement's duration, and can depend on the characteristics of the sample itself. By measuring a material of known isotopic composition, fractionation within the mass spectrometer can be removed during post-measurement data processing. Without isotope references, measurements by mass spectrometry would be much less accurate and could not be used in comparisons across different analytical facilities. Due to their critical role in measuring isotope ratios, and i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Domenico Troili
Domenico Troili (1722–1792) was an Italian ''abbate'' and a Jesuit, who held the appointment of custodian of the library of the ruling family of Este in Modena. He is recognized as the first person who documented the fall of a meteorite, in 1766. Troili was a pupil of Roger Joseph Boscovich at the Collegio Romano, and supported his master's atomic theory explaining the properties of matter. The Albareto meteorite In 1766, Troili witnessed the fall of a stone from the sky near the town of Albareto, in the Duchy of Parma, Italy. He collected reports from many other eyewitnesses, closely examined the stone and detected in it small grains of a brassy mineral. He called the material "marchesita" (from Italian "little marchioness"). Troili summarized the results of his research in a 43-page document, ''Ragionamento della caduta di un sasso'' ("Concerning the fall of a stone from the air") published in Modena in 1766. The report by Troili said that at about five hours after midday, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mundrabilla (meteorite)
The Mundrabilla meteorite is an iron meteorite found in 1911 in Australia, one of the largest meteorites found, with a total known weight of 22 tonnes and the main mass (the single largest fragment) accounting for 12.4 tonnes. History In 1911 an iron meteorite fragment of 112 g was found by Harry Kent, foreman in charge of camels for the Western Australian survey of the transcontinental railway route, at , on Premier Downs station on the Nullarbor Plain. The small meteorite was called ''Premier Downs I''. Later in 1911 Kent found another small iron meteorite (116 g) about west from the found location of ''Premier Downs I'', named ''Premier Downs II''. Both meteorites were medium octahedrites, believed to be part of the same fall. In 1918 a third similar small iron meteorite of 99 g was found in the area by A. Ewing, named ''Premier Downs III''. In 1962 a small iron meteorite of 108 g with similar characteristics was found near Loongana railway station by a rabbit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Graphite
Graphite () is a crystalline form of the element carbon. It consists of stacked layers of graphene. Graphite occurs naturally and is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions. Synthetic and natural graphite are consumed on large scale (300 kton/year, in 1989) for uses in pencils, lubricants, and electrodes. Under high pressures and temperatures it converts to diamond. It is a weak conductor of heat and electricity. Types and varieties Natural graphite The principal types of natural graphite, each occurring in different types of ore deposits, are * Crystalline small flakes of graphite (or flake graphite) occurs as isolated, flat, plate-like particles with hexagonal edges if unbroken. When broken the edges can be irregular or angular; * Amorphous graphite: very fine flake graphite is sometimes called amorphous; * Lump graphite (or vein graphite) occurs in fissure veins or fractures and appears as massive platy intergrowths of fibrous or acicular cry ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chromite
Chromite is a crystalline mineral composed primarily of iron(II) oxide and chromium(III) oxide compounds. It can be represented by the chemical formula of FeCr2O4. It is an oxide mineral belonging to the spinel group. The element magnesium can substitute for iron in variable amounts as it forms a solid solution with magnesiochromite (MgCr2O4). A substitution of the element aluminium can also occur, leading to hercynite (FeAl2O4). Chromite today is mined particularly to make stainless steel through the production of ferrochrome (FeCr), which is an iron-chromium alloy. Chromite grains are commonly found in large mafic igneous intrusions such as the Bushveld in South Africa and India. Chromite is iron-black in color with a metallic luster, a dark brown streak and a hardness on the Mohs scale of 5.5. Properties Chromite minerals are mainly found in mafic-ultramafic igneous intrusions and are also sometimes found in metamorphic rocks. The chromite minerals occur in laye ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Daubréelite
Daubréelite is a rare sulfide mineral. It crystallizes with cubic symmetry and has chemical composition of Fe2+Cr3+2S4. It usually occurs as black platy aggregates. Naming and history Daubréelite was named after the French mineralogist, petrologist and meteoriticist Gabriel Auguste Daubrée. The mineral was first described in 1876 in the ''American Journal of Science''. Its type locality is the Coahuila meteorite, Bolsom de Mapimí, Coahuila, Mexico. Classification In the Nickel-Strunz classification daubréelite is part of the "Sulfides and Sulfosalts" and further a "metal sulfide with a metal-sulfide ratio of 3:4 and 2:3". Occurrences Daubréelite is found in iron meteorites as an inclusion in meteoric iron (kamacite and taenite). Further paragenetic minerals are alabandine, enstatite, graphite, plagioclase and schreibersite. According to one source daubréelite has been described from 34 localities. Some notable examples being the ALH 84001 meteorite, Hoba meteorite, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stoichiometry
Stoichiometry refers to the relationship between the quantities of reactants and products before, during, and following chemical reactions. Stoichiometry is founded on the law of conservation of mass where the total mass of the reactants equals the total mass of the products, leading to the insight that the relations among quantities of reactants and products typically form a ratio of positive integers. This means that if the amounts of the separate reactants are known, then the amount of the product can be calculated. Conversely, if one reactant has a known quantity and the quantity of the products can be empirically determined, then the amount of the other reactants can also be calculated. This is illustrated in the image here, where the balanced equation is: : Here, one molecule of methane reacts with two molecules of oxygen gas to yield one molecule of carbon dioxide and two molecules of water. This particular chemical equation is an example of complete combust ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustav Rose
Prof Gustavus ("Gustav") Rose FRSFor HFRSE (18 March 1798 – 15 July 1873) was a German mineralogist who was a native of Berlin. He was President of the German Geological Society from 1863 to 1873. Life He was born in Berlin the son of pharmacologist Valentin Rose. Rose was a graduate of the University of Berlin, where he was a student of mineralogist Christian Samuel Weiss (1780–1856). He also studied under Swedish physical chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius (1779–1848) in Stockholm. While studying with Berzelius, Rose met German chemist Eilhard Mitscherlich (1794–1863), with whom he maintained a lifelong friendship. Rose provided assistance to Mitscherlich's development of the law of isomorphism. In 1826 he became an associate professor of mineralogy in Berlin. In 1829, with German naturalists Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) and Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg (1795–1876), Rose took part in a scientific expedition throughout Imperial Russia. In Russia he performed m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mineralogist
Mineralogy is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry, crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and mineralized artifacts. Specific studies within mineralogy include the processes of mineral origin and formation, classification of minerals, their geographical distribution, as well as their utilization. History Early writing on mineralogy, especially on gemstones, comes from ancient Babylonia, the ancient Greco-Roman world, ancient and medieval China, and Sanskrit texts from ancient India and the ancient Islamic world. Books on the subject included the ''Naturalis Historia'' of Pliny the Elder, which not only described many different minerals but also explained many of their properties, and Kitab al Jawahir (Book of Precious Stones) by Persian scientist Al-Biruni. The German Renaissance specialist Georgius Agricola wrote works such as '' De re metallica'' (''On Metals'', 1556) and '' De Natura Fossilium'' ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pyrite
The mineral pyrite (), or iron pyrite, also known as fool's gold, is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula Fe S2 (iron (II) disulfide). Pyrite is the most abundant sulfide mineral. Pyrite's metallic luster and pale brass-yellow hue give it a superficial resemblance to gold, hence the well-known nickname of ''fool's gold''. The color has also led to the nicknames ''brass'', ''brazzle'', and ''Brazil'', primarily used to refer to pyrite found in coal. The name ''pyrite'' is derived from the Greek (), 'stone or mineral which strikes fire', in turn from (), 'fire'. In ancient Roman times, this name was applied to several types of stone that would create sparks when struck against steel; Pliny the Elder described one of them as being brassy, almost certainly a reference to what we now call pyrite. By Georgius Agricola's time, , the term had become a generic term for all of the sulfide minerals. Pyrite is usually found associated with other sulfides or oxides in quartz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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