A team of researchers discovered at least two new minerals that had never been seen before on Earth, the startling find was in a 15-tonne meteorite found in Somalia, which became the ninth largest meteorite ever found. Now, researchers at the University of Alberta will attempt to identify and name the two substances never seen before on Earth.

In this context, Chris Herd, professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and curator of the Meteorite Collection at the University of Alberta. He noted, “Every time you find a new mineral, it means the actual geological conditions, the rock chemistry, were different from what was found before.” Likewise, he added that the two minerals found in the meteorite make the discovery even more exciting and new to science.

What did they name the new minerals?

According to what the University of Alberta has published, the two minerals found are from a single 70 gram piece that was sent to the Canadian university for classification and apparently there is a third potential mineral which is however In the study, if the researchers have obtained more samples of the massive meteorite, it is possible that more minerals will be found.

Thus, the two newly discovered minerals were named elaliite and elkinstantonite. The first takes its name from the meteorite itself, nicknamed the “El Ali” meteorite because it was found near the town of El Ali in the Hiiraan region of Somalia. Separately, Herd named the second mineral after Lindy Elkins-Tanton, vice president of ASU’s Interplanetary Initiative, professor in Arizona State University’s School of Earth and Space Exploration, and senior researcher. for the next NASA Psyche mission.

“Lindy has done a lot of work on the formation of the cores of the planets, the formation of these iron and nickel cores, and the closest analogue we have is iron meteorites, so it made sense to name a mineral and recognize its contributions to science,” Herd explained.

This is how the El Ali meteorite is classified

Together with researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and the California Institute of Technology, Herd classified the El Ali meteorite as an “IAB iron complex” meteorite, one of more than 350 in this particular category. As Herd was analyzing the meteorite to classify it, he saw something that caught his eye. The experience of Andrew Locock, director of the electron microprobe laboratory at the University of Alberta, who has been involved in other descriptions of new minerals, including hermanite-(Ce), has also been added. “The first day he did an analysis, he said, ‘You have at least two new minerals in there,'” Herd said. “It was wonderful. Most of the time it takes a lot more work than that to tell there’s a new mineral.”

Locock’s early identification was possible because both minerals had previously been created synthetically, thus matching the composition of the newly discovered natural minerals to their man-made counterparts. While the meteorite’s future remains uncertain, Herd said researchers learned it appeared to have been flown to China in search of a potential buyer, so it remains to be seen if additional samples can be found. collected for scientific purposes.