“Whenever you find a new mineral, it means that the geological conditions, the chemistry of the rock, was different than what’s been found before,” Chris Herd, curator of the University of Alberta’s Meteorite Collection, said in a media statement. “That’s what makes this exciting. In this particular meteorite, you have two officially described minerals that are new to science.”
The new minerals – named elaliite and elkinstantonite – were identified rapidly by Andrew Locock, head of the university’s Electron Microprobe Laboratory, because each had been synthetically created before.
Elaliite is named after the meteorite itself, dubbed the “El Ali” meteorite because it was found near El Ali, in Somalia. Herd named the second mineral after distinguished planetary scientist Lindy Elkins-Tanton, due to her work exploring how the cores of planets are formed.
The research, conducted in collaboration with…
