Scientists and Philosopher Team Up, Propose a New Way To Categorize Minerals (phys.org) 42
An anonymous reader shares a report: Some diamonds were formed billions of years ago in space as the carbon-rich atmospheres of dying stars expanded and cooled. In our own planet's lifetime, high-temperatures and pressures in the mantle produced the diamonds that are familiar to us as gems. 5,000 years ago, a large meteorite that struck a carbon-rich sediment on Earth produced an impact diamond. Each of these diamonds differs from the others in both composition and genesis, but all are categorized as "diamond" by the authoritative guide to minerals -- the International Mineralogical Association's Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification. For many physical scientists, this inconsistency poses no problem. But the IMA system leaves unanswered questions for planetary scientists, geobiologists, paleontologists and others who strive to understand minerals' historical context.
So, Carnegie's Robert Hazen and Shaunna Morrison teamed up with CU Boulder philosophy of science professor Carol Cleland to propose that scientists address this shortcoming with a new "evolutionary system" of mineral classification -- one that includes historical data and reflects changes in the diversity and distribution of minerals through more than 4 billion years of Earth's history. Their work is published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We came together from the very different fields of philosophy and planetary science to see if there was a rigorous way to bring the dimension of time into discussions about the solid materials that compose Earth," Hazen said.
So, Carnegie's Robert Hazen and Shaunna Morrison teamed up with CU Boulder philosophy of science professor Carol Cleland to propose that scientists address this shortcoming with a new "evolutionary system" of mineral classification -- one that includes historical data and reflects changes in the diversity and distribution of minerals through more than 4 billion years of Earth's history. Their work is published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "We came together from the very different fields of philosophy and planetary science to see if there was a rigorous way to bring the dimension of time into discussions about the solid materials that compose Earth," Hazen said.
Re: This goes too far. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
They've been on the market for at least a decade. Could have something to do with increasing yields though, and an increasingly dim view of the exploitation usually involved in mining natural diamonds.
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Let's muddy the waters of... water too.
Let's create a classification system for mineral waters versus distilled water with dissolved minerals that are lab indistinguishable from one another.
I need to be assured by Evian water comes from the French Alps and doesn't just test, smell and taste exactly like it.
It's not enough to contain this in commercial or trademark areas, we need to introduce new nomenclature within science.
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No, because by definition those items are neither minerals, nor diamonds. They can't be diamonds because they are not minerals, because they can't be minerals due to being grown in a lab and not naturally occurring. It's in the actual bare bones definition of what a mineral is.
This whole thing is a couple of bored people looking for something to do, and get some funding just so they can do something. Geologists already list the differences in mineral origins by natural language, such as with the diamonds: T
Define Away Your Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: Define Away Your Competition (Score:4, Funny)
Or the progressives could be hiding under your couch right now!
Suspicious (Score:2)
Did somebody invent a dirt cheap method to make diamonds?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Suspicious (Score:2)
Well, actually, *much* less than half the cost.
It's just... if you wanna make a profit, why go more than 50% below your competition? It's enough of a middle finger already.
Next guy can go 50% below that. Actual cost's gonna be a few pennies a pop.
How about an old evolutionary system? (Score:3)
And we shall call this evolutionary system "adjectives."
Exempli gratia:
"volcanic" diamonds.
"impact" diamonds.
"space" diamonds.
"synthetic" diamonds.
Quod erat demonstrandum, qui enim grammatica obliviscaris.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Sorry, that doesn't change the composition of the diamond since the blood just washes away.
Re:How about an old evolutionary system? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ironically if the "historical data" part of the classification is done properly, for the first time the blood won't just wash away.
Re: (Score:3)
Exempli gratia:
"volcanic" diamonds.
"impact" diamonds.
"space" diamonds.
"synthetic" diamonds.
One more and you can call it a Flush.
Re: (Score:2)
This made me chuckle, thank you.
Posting my praise instead of modding, since I had to waste all my mod points modding down spam that /. can't seem to be arsed to deal with.
I agree! (Score:5, Insightful)
Each of these diamonds differs from the others in both composition and genesis, but all are categorized as "diamond" by the authoritative guide to minerals
We should start calling naturally occurring diamonds (which are historically extracted using slaves) "slavery diamonds" while we call synthesized ones, "perfect diamonds" since they aren't flawed.
Sounds good to the diamond industry folks that are funding this bullshit, right?
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Are they able to grow "perfect diamonds" in labs now?
Last time I looked, synthetic diamonds make perfectly acceptable gems but not to the level of the best natural diamonds (the ones you can't afford). They have an advantage is some technical applications where they can be made to specs, but AFAIK, we are far from the purity of man-made sapphire and, of course, silicon.
Re:I agree! (Score:4, Interesting)
Last time I looked
Are you sure you have ever looked? As far as I know, the most expensive natural diamonds (apart from the size criterion) are coloured ones, which, by definition, are imperfect.
In any case, to answer your question, synthetic diamonds that are more perfect than natural diamonds have been produced for over a decade now. De Beers had to roll out some super expensive machines that could tell them apart (by figuring out they are "too perfect"), and were trying to claim that without natural imperfections it's somehow inferior. They sort of changed course and started producing synthetic diamonds themselves and driving synthetic prices down to make it less financially lucrative for rivals and also to control the advertising so as to present synthetics as "cheap alternatives", when they are probably "better" in most meanings of the word.
And I won't even go into the fact that natural diamonds are artificially scarce by controlling supply - they are actually abundant in nature. If you want rare gems, look at something else. But, marketing is everything as we know...
Conflict diamonds (Score:2)
Re: Conflict diamonds (Score:2)
Having just one taxonomy is cumersome though
E.g. gatronomy and normal.people have different definitoms thad biologists for a reason.
Gene-based taxonomy is useful if you're a geneticist. But in the field, grouping things by how they look is also very much more useful.
Can't comment right now... (Score:2)
... Focusing on my exciting new categorization of square gray stamps.
diamonds? how about calcite? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
So you don't know anything about diamonds, and wrote a falsehood. Diamonds absolutely have different structures depending how they were formed. And no, real diamonds such as mined ones, synthesized ones and industrial diamond are not pure crystals of carbon in face centered cubic lattice.
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You apparently know nothing about crystallography. Or even an inkling of what the hell you are talking about.
And no, real diamonds such as mined ones, synthesized ones and industrial diamond are not pure crystals of carbon in face centered cubic lattice.
"But muh diamond has one silicon atom substitution, it's not the theoretical pure version"!
Well guess what, diamond is a mineral, and by definition it IS "a face centered cubic Bravais lattice and two atoms in the basis." Even with natures mess of sticking similar sized and charged atoms in the structure if they are available, the d-spacing in the crystal structure will still be the same. X-ray cryst
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x-ray crystallography was part of my physics degree. Stop spewing in ignorance with your high school level understanding of a complex subject.
The inclusions in a mined diamond will have metals and certain structural flaws from its manner of formation formation. Synthetic diamonds will have graphite inclusions but not metals. Asteroid diamonds will have their own unique inclusions and shock flaws. d.
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X-ray crystallography was a major portion my DEGREE, asshat. I did it every day for three years. Don't you go spewing bullshit if you only played with XRD and XRF in physics, come back when you use both for tracking geochemistry progressions. Actual heavy metal xenocryst inclusion in diamond is very RARE.
Atomic substitutions aren't, simply because the mantle is enriched in several elements that have similar atomic radii and charge that can swap in for the carbon in diamonds crystal matrices.
And again, even
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You miss the point, college boy. Diamonds found in nature have various unique composition as minerals and fractures, and are the worthy reason those the subject of this article want to classify them.
Who said "heavy metals", aluminum is the majority inclusion metal in mined diamonds.
As for metals in synth diamond, maybe you only played with the catalyst synth ones with nickel and iron.
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Diamonds have essentially the same structure regardless of how they are formed.
Not strictly speaking true. You can make depleted diamonds (i.e. isotopically pure ones). The structure is very similar, but the lack of purity in normal crapdiamonds does affect the structure subtly. The pure ones have a thermal conductivity of around 10 times the already insanely high conductivity of diamond.
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He was just spouting in ignorance. The inclusions in a mined diamond will have metals and certain structural flaws from formation. Synthetic diamonds will have graphite inclusions but not metals. Asteroid diamonds will have their own unique inclusions and shock flaws. It is a fascinating and complex study, not like the stupid calcite he mentioned.
the existence of this idealized version is fiction (Score:1)
"For example, the IMA defines quartz as pure silicon dioxide, but the existence of this idealized version is completely fictional," said Morrison. "Every specimen of quartz contains imperfections—traces of its formation process that makes it unique."
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Sure, and when a certain group of German's tried this same technique on humans, everyone lost their minds.
Do not want (Score:2)
Why in tarnation would I want different names for the identical substance that differs only by age? Somebody has too much time on their hands. (see what I did there...)
Real versus synthetic diamonds. (Score:2)
Real diamonds are worth more than synthetic diamonds, as items of jewellery. The problem with this judgement is that "synthetic" is almost always perceived as something that is fake, and only superficially resembles the "real thing". But in the case of synthetic diamonds, they are the real thing, and not an imitation. Imitation diamonds made using cubic zirconia, for example, are not diamonds. Gems made using cubic zirconia are just as sparkly as diamond gems; they just don't have the same asset value, in t
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But in the case of synthetic diamonds, they are the real thing, and not an imitation.
In a very real sense, the manufactured diamonds are superior.
Btw a common imitation diamond is moissanite. It's nearly as hard with similar dispersion, but much cheaper. As the kids might say, that's pretty sic.
*ba dum tschh*
That's not evolutionary (Score:2)
It's pure creationism. You classify by how the mineral was created.
I imagine Hank say... (Score:2)
"Jesus Christ, Marie. They are time-tagged, evolved Earth-origin minerals."
Cheers!
pr3d