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Scientists Have Finally Sampled the Most Abundant Material On Earth

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.

3 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Wait till they see water! by bjohnson · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Compared to the volume of the rest of the planet, much of it consisting of, you guessed it, bridgmanite, water is a very thin film on the surface....water is about 0.02% of the total earths' mass

  2. Re:Wait till they see water! by vux984 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Water is in fact, therefore, pretty scarce on Earth.

    That's like arguing the material a balloon is made of is scarce on a balloon. Its true that there's not much of it in the total volume of a balloon. But it still makes up pretty much 100% of the surface area ON a balloon.

    Similarly bridgmanite is pretty rare on the surface, even if it is the most common by far when you start looking further down.

  3. Re:Wait till they see water! by TWX · · Score: 1, Insightful

    I donno, lately I'm finding more tech news and geek/fandom interests by browsing reddit/all than I find on Slashdot.

    --
    Do not look into laser with remaining eye.