Scientists Have Finally Sampled the Most Abundant Material On Earth 128
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.
(Mg,Fe)SiO3 (Score:5, Informative)
some info [mindat.org] 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.
Re:(Mg,Fe)SiO3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting.
But the summary is slightly misleding. The stuff they found came from a shocked meteorite. And it fits the theoretical models of the makeup of the lower mantle. But it sounds like we still haven't gotten a significant sample from inside the earth to validate the theory.
Re:(Mg,Fe)SiO3 (Score:4, Informative)
Not just "sounds like"... they've got nothing other than speculation which confirms earlier speculation.
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Space travel is hard, and so is digging a very deep hole. Hard things to do must all be equally hard, therefore it's weird that we haven't dug a hole to sample this stuff. 100% bomb proof logic you've got there.
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We do have the materials for the former ; we do
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Nor is it going to happen. You'll need to get to a depth of around 650km below surface, and get your sample THEN quench it through a temperature range of around 500+Kelvin to prevent it from decomposing into other materials as it's passing through the pressure-temperature regimes between it's natural environment and the surface.
Remember : this is mineralogy : the composition of a material is not the
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Re:(Mg,Fe)SiO3 (Score:4, Interesting)
This was sort of my point. It is my understanding that the correct structure of Bridgemanite is not stable on the surface of the earth. So what we find lying around are samples that have been cooled and decompressed.
One of my hobbies involves hardening and annealing metal. And time at temperature is a critical factor (fast vs slow cooling) to produce the desired material characteristics. So I'm not convinced that the stuff inside a meteorite, which experiences these extremes for only a few seconds correctly duplicates something that has been exposed for a few billion years.
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The original article in Science [sciencemag.org] has considerably more detail too, although it's behind a paywall.
Summary is wrong (Score:5, Informative)
Technically, it's not "on Earth", it's "in Earth".
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Actually, some of it *is* on the Earth; at least some samples are. It's not like they dug a hole to examine it there and say "Sorry, boys, but we gotta leave this thing in the Earth if we're gonna say 'It's in Earth.'"
No, if you're talking about the sample mentioned in the article, that is not even from Earth to begin with, so it can not even be safely assumed to be identical to lower mantle material. Some meteorites may be similar, but until we examine actual mantel bridgmanite we're not truly confirming anything. So as far as we know, there has still been no mantle bridgmanite found on Earth.
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Actually, some of it *is* on the Earth; at least some samples are. It's not like they dug a hole to examine it there and say "Sorry, boys, but we gotta leave this thing in the Earth if we're gonna say 'It's in Earth.'"
FWIW, the bridgmanite samples in question (technically a phase of a perovskite crystal structure mineral) does not exist outside the pressure/temperatures which occur *in* the earth which is why samples have never been discovered *on* the earth before (although they certainly have likely existed, no-one has discovered/isolated them before). The interesting thing about this sample is that we didn't have to create the pressure/temperature (apparently 24 gigapascals and 2300 kelvin) in order to form it as the
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well the sample they tested was never inside earth.
it's on earth now though it was in space before..
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Technically, it's not "on Earth", it's "in Earth".
I prefer "of Earth"
Re: Cool (Score:2, Funny)
It is to the Vogons.
Re: Cool (Score:5, Funny)
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Ye gods, send in the Vogon Constructor Fleet to make it quick and painless.
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Hard to say at this point. I'd classify this under "basic science". We have a lot of scientific models that this research touches on: models of what the earth's interior looks like, of how rocks change under pressure, of crystal structures, etc. And in turn, a lot of practical work is based at least in part on current scientific understanding material science. So improving our understanding of basic geology is probably good for practical applications in the long term. But it's not directly applicable in the
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Of course cool.
They couldn't touch it at its usual temperature!
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Yep, construction filler (earth crust would collapse without it, or at least encompass small area) and a significant contribution to Earth's gravity.
Not settled science? (Score:1)
I'm guessing that this is not settled science (whatever that is) and that at most they have a model to justify their model.
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How about Unobtainium?
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No! I refuse to believe Earth has over 30% vegemite filling!
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No! I refuse to believe Earth has over 30% vegemite filling!
It'd explain why the oceans are so salty.
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It's not liquid, it's not hot, and it's not magma.
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Wild guess (Score:2)
How about "Gamer Tears"
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I think the most abundant thing would have to be idiocy. But it's not really a material substance, so you can't quite put your hands on it... no matter how much you might want to.
Bridgmanite, also known as... (Score:2)
The most abundant material on Slashdot ... (Score:1)
... is untroll when you surf at (Score:2) band above.
Bridgmanite? (Score:2)
The Bayonne Bridgemen [bridgemen.com] Drum and Bugle Corps must be thrilled!!!
Also known as ... (Score:2)
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... nougat.
"It's what makes your planet so delicious" - Galactus
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These words don't mean what you think they means (Score:2)
abundant - existing or available in large quantities; plentiful.
sample - a small part or quantity intended to show what the whole is like.
How can something plentiful be completely inaccessible?
Yes, they correctly sampled a meteorite, they did NOT sample from the earth.
Sorry, but just because it exists in an asteroid, doesn't mean it is abundant on, or in earth.
Jason Koebler should have a lot more critical thinking in an article as important as this purported discovery.
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How can something plentiful be completely inaccessible?
Well, it could for example be something blocking access to it.
No-one is arguing that the sun doesn't have plenty of mass. I still consider it highly inaccessible and don't think that we will be able to get a core sample anytime soon.
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> abundant - existing or available in large quantities; plentiful.
...
> How can something plentiful be completely inaccessible?
The key word is "or". I.e. you can condense the above definition to read (for this case): "Abundant: existing in large quantities". Doesn't have to be accessible.
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How can something plentiful be completely inaccessible?
Women. To Slashdotters.
Article appears to be incorrect. (Score:2)
I believe the most abundant material on earth is not infact what they claim at all. I believe the most abundant material is actually these.
http://virulentwordofmouse.fil... [wordpress.com]
Silly scientists (Score:5, Funny)
The obvious and accpted name should be, Alotofite
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How silly! (Score:2)
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Luminiferous ether!
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Unobtainium has been obtained? Now it's "Misnamedium".
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You will never see that happen, just as you have never seen any of the strawman garbage you attribute to "space nutters" said by any actual person.
Re: Let me guess (Score:2)
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How's it feel to know all the sci-fi garbage you drank with a firehose as a kid will never, ever come true?
Sweet, we found someone who can prove a negative! Somebody get me the entire math community on the phone.
Re:Wait till they see water! (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
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Does that include the water recently found in ringwoodite?
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Re:Wait till they see water! (Score:4, Interesting)
actually the total amount of water would only cover the entire surface with a uniform layer one fifteenth of one percent the total radius of the planet. Water is in fact, therefore, pretty scarce on Earth.
Re:Wait till they see water! (Score:5, 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.
Re:Wait till they see water! (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
...
Two strikes for you - first you make a poor analogy (In a completely deflated state the rubber is the entire volume and mass of the balloon), and second you missed the opportunity to make it a car analogy.
A better analogy would be that paint (or enamel) is pretty scarce on a car since such a tiny fraction of its total mass consists of paint, even though us "surfacists" consider the paint a very important characteristic of the car.
Re:Wait till they see water! (Score:5, Funny)
Wooosssh!
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Re: Wait till they see water! (Score:3, Funny)
Or the sound of a deflating balloon
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There's more water on Europa than on Earth.
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Water is indeed one of the most common molecules in the universe. This makes perfect sense since its two components, hydrogen and oxygen, are the first and third most common elements, and second most common, helium, does not readily form molecules.
Water is vanishingly rare on Earth compared to the universe at large.
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actually the total amount of water would only cover the entire surface with a uniform layer one fifteenth of one percent the total radius of the planet. Water is in fact, therefore, pretty scarce on Earth.
How many libraries of Congress is that?
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that's roughly equivalent to the wax layer on the skin of an apple.
Re:Wait till they see water! (Score:5, Funny)
I thought stupidity was the most abundant material on earth.
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No, just on reddit.
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Really? I don't see the N word used in the comments to tech articles on Reddit, just Slashdot. /. needs better moderation.
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It is the most abundant material on Facebook.
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Just a small technical quibble. Intelligence is of course quantifiable and limited resource. Stupidity however has no bounds, it's abundance therefore cannot really be measured.
Re: Wait till they see water! (Score:1)
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They sampled the most abundant material on Earth....WELL, how did it taste?