Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Scientists Have Finally Sampled the Most Abundant Material On Earth

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-made-out-of-people dept.

rossgneumann writes: The most abundant material on Earth didn't have a name, and, in fact, hadn't been seen — until now. For the first time ever, scientists have gotten their hands on a sample of bridgmanite, a mineral that is believed to make up more than a third of the volume of the Earth. In a new paper published in Science late last week, Oliver Tschauner of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and his team describe bridgmanite for the first time.

4 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. (Mg,Fe)SiO3 by Noah+Haders · · Score: 5, Informative

    some info not in the summary or article:

    Formula: (Mg,Fe)SiO3
    System: Orthorhombic
    Name:
    Named in 2014 by Chi Ma and Oliver Tschauner in honor of Percy Williams Bridgman [April 21, 1882 Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA - August 20, 1961 Randolph, New Hampshire, USA], winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1946 for his work in high-pressure physics.

    1. Re:(Mg,Fe)SiO3 by shri · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not just "sounds like"... they've got nothing other than speculation which confirms earlier speculation.

      Tschauner’s description of bridgmanite gives us no such insights about the inside of the Earth, other than to confirm what scientists believed to have been true for quite some time: The mineral exists, and it can occur naturally under highly pressurized conditions.

    2. Re:(Mg,Fe)SiO3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      The original article in Science has considerably more detail too, although it's behind a paywall.

  2. Summary is wrong by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Technically, it's not "on Earth", it's "in Earth".

    --
    -1 Uncomfortable Truth