June 2021

Mineral Previously Known Only in Meteorites Discovered at Dead Sea

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kVjEt3Yngys/YNyTiLEgjSI/AAAAAAAATKk/aAznoca-zJwxji0BXEnVL4zCJO32FnOkACLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/Allabogdanite%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="738" data-original-width="1200" height="394" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kVjEt3Yngys/YNyTiLEgjSI/AAAAAAAATKk/aAznoca-zJwxji0BXEnVL4zCJO32FnOkACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h394/Allabogdanite%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Mineral Previously Known Only in Meteorites Discovered at Dead Sea" width="640" /></a></div>  Allabogdanite was first reported in the early 2000s from the Onello—a small iron meteorite recovered from the gold placer at the Bolshoi Dolguchan River in Eastern Yakutia. Chemically, the mineral belongs to phosphides—the compounds containing phosphorus in a negative oxidation state. It was named in honor of the crystallographer Alla Bogdanova. Since then, allabogdanite has been identified in several iron meteorites. The recent discovery at the Dead Sea is the first confirmation of the mineral on Earth. Allabogdanite was detected in the course of a systematic study of terrestrial phosphides from the Dead Sea region. "Our research included the experiments on phase transitions of terrestrial allabogdanite at high pressure and high temperature at the DESY synchrotron light source in Germany," said Sergey Britvin, the main author of the article, professor in the Department of Crystallography at St Petersburg University. <div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div> "It has been found that terrestrial allabogdanite could be formed at pressures exceeding 25 gigapascals that corresponds to ca. 250 kbar. Such high pressures on Earth can be attained during catastrophic collisions with large meteorite impactors, or at the Earth's mantle conditions, at a depth of more than 500 kilometers. However, the discovery of terrestrial allabogdanite is associated with the surface rocks of the Hatrurim Formation (also known as the Mottled Zone) in the Negev Desert in Israel. This is the area where natural cyclophosphates have been recently discovered." Professor Sergey Britvin added that the discovery of allabogdanite in the historical region of the South Levant in the Middle East raises many questions related to the formation conditions of surficial rocks in this region. Despite the fact that allabogdanite was discovered in meteorite almost 20 years ago, it was only in 2008 that it was shown that the mineral belongs to the indicators of high pressure. The results of current research evidence that terrestrial allabogdanite is a metastable high pressure phase. It was formed as a result of transformation from another mineral—barringerite, and was preserved under normal conditions as a result of quenching—an abrupt release of temperature and pressure. "This way excludes the possibility of allabogdanite formation as an intermediate phase from the elements under atmospheric pressure. This, in turn, raises a number of key questions regarding the origin of rocks in the Mottled Zone. Until now, no evidence for the large meteorite collisions or the rocks having Earth's mantle origin has been found in the South Levant. However, such evidence might have been 'erased' from the Earth's surface as a result of later processes of geological erosion. The discovery of allabogdanite justifies the necessity of further research in this direction," said Professor Sergey Britvin.  The above story is based on <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2138/am-2021-7621" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://english.spbu.ru/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">St. Petersburg State University.</a>

Mineral Previously Known Only in Meteorites Discovered at Dead Sea

Allabogdanite was first reported in the early 2000s from the Onello—a small iron meteorite recovered from the gold placer at the Bolshoi D...

“Invisible” Gold – Fool’s Gold Actually Contains Real Gold

Geochemistry, Mineralogy 7:47 PM

“Invisible” Gold – Fool’s Gold Actually Contains Real Gold

Pyrite, Casapalca Mine, Huarochiri Province, Lima, Peru Photo: Mineralauctions Curtin University research has found tiny amounts of gold c...

Ancient Fungal Parasite of Ants Found Preserved in Baltic Amber

amber, Fossils 7:06 PM

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o4ixmuyc3TY/YNX-NZlCvFI/AAAAAAAATKA/2-ecP_grCQwlQJZQkTqSXISPtew6m_4igCLcBGAsYHQ/s1349/Ant%2Btrapped%2Bin%2Bancient%2Bamber%2Bwith%2Bparasitic%2Bmushroom%2Bstuck%2Bin%2Bits%2Bbutt%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="915" data-original-width="1349" height="434" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-o4ixmuyc3TY/YNX-NZlCvFI/AAAAAAAATKA/2-ecP_grCQwlQJZQkTqSXISPtew6m_4igCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h434/Ant%2Btrapped%2Bin%2Bancient%2Bamber%2Bwith%2Bparasitic%2Bmushroom%2Bstuck%2Bin%2Bits%2Bbutt%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Ant trapped in ancient amber with parasitic mushroom stuck in its butt" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">About 50 million years ago, this ant got stuck in tree resin that also preserved the parasitic fungus that was giving it a hard time. George Poinar Jr./OSU</td></tr></tbody></table>  Oregon State University research has identified the oldest known specimen of a fungus parasitizing an ant, and the fossil also represents a new fungal genus and species. “It’s a mushroom growing out of a carpenter ant,” said OSU’s George Poinar Jr., an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn about the biology and ecology of the distant past. A mushroom is the reproductive structure of many fungi, including the ones you find growing in your yard, and Poinar and a collaborator in France named their discovery Allocordyceps baltica. They found the new type of Ascomycota fungi in an ant preserved in 50-million-year-old amber from Europe’s Baltic region.<div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;">
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</div>“Ants are hosts to a number of intriguing parasites, some of which modify the insects’ behavior to benefit the parasites’ development and dispersion,” said Poinar, who has a courtesy appointment in the OSU College of Science. “Ants of the tribe Camponotini, commonly known as carpenter ants, seem especially susceptible to fungal pathogens of the genus Ophiocordyceps, including one species that compels infected ants to bite into various erect plant parts just before they die.” Doing so, he explains, puts the ants in a favorable position for allowing fungal spores to be released from cup-shaped ascomata – the fungi’s fruiting body –protruding from the ants’ head and neck. Carpenter ants usually make their nests in trees, rotting logs and stumps. The new fungal genus and species shares certain features with Ophiocordyceps but also displays several developmental stages not previously reported, Poinar said. To name the genus, placed in the order Hypocreales, Poinar and fellow researcher Yves-Marie Maltier combined the Greek word for new – alloios – with the name of known genus Cordyceps. “We can see a large, orange, cup-shaped ascoma with developing perithecia – flask-shaped structures that let the spores out – emerging from the rectum of the ant,” Poinar said. “The vegetative part of the fungus is coming out of the abdomen and the base of the neck. We see freestanding fungal bodies also bearing what look like perithecia, and in addition we see what look like the sacs where spores develop. All of the stages, those attached to the ant and the freestanding ones, are of the same species.” The fungus could not be placed in the known ant-infecting genus Ophiocordyceps because ascomata in those species usually come out the neck or head of an ant, Poinar said, and not the rectum. “There is no doubt that Allocordyceps represents a fungal infection of a Camponotus ant,” he said. “This is the first fossil record of a member of the Hypocreales order emerging from the body of an ant. And as the earliest fossil record of fungal parasitism of ants, it can be used in future studies as a reference point regarding the origin of the fungus-ant association.” The above story is based on <a href="https://today.oregonstate.edu/news/mushroom-growing-out-fossilized-ant-reveals-new-genus-and-species-fungal-parasite" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Materials</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> provided by <a href="http://oregonstate.edu/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Oregon State University</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; display: inline; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">. Original written by Steve Lundeberg.

Ancient Fungal Parasite of Ants Found Preserved in Baltic Amber

About 50 million years ago, this ant got stuck in tree resin that also preserved the parasitic fungus that was giving it a hard time. George...

Siberian Volcanic Eruptions Triggered End-Permian Mass Extinction

Earth History, extinction 6:47 PM

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cuJHPlR9_Ws/YNIF7i5H_CI/AAAAAAAATJ0/YmwudJpK7CIzdxWpirUdwBr4NWup40uTACLcBGAsYHQ/s1232/Siberian%2BVolcanic%2BEruptions%2BTriggered%2BEnd-Permian%2BMass%2BExtinction.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="693" data-original-width="1232" height="360" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cuJHPlR9_Ws/YNIF7i5H_CI/AAAAAAAATJ0/YmwudJpK7CIzdxWpirUdwBr4NWup40uTACLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h360/Siberian%2BVolcanic%2BEruptions%2BTriggered%2BEnd-Permian%2BMass%2BExtinction.jpg" title="Fossilized crinoids, marine invertebrates that lived during the Permian Period, found in western Australia. Credit...John Cancalosi, via Getty Images" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fossilized crinoids, marine invertebrates that lived during the Permian Period, found in western Australia. Credit...John Cancalosi, via Getty Images</td></tr></tbody></table>  The most severe mass extinction event in the past 540 million years eliminated more than 90 percent of Earth's marine species and 75 percent of terrestrial species. Although scientists had previously hypothesized that the end-Permian mass extinction, which took place 251 million years ago, was triggered by voluminous volcanic eruptions in a region of what is now Siberia, they were not able to explain the mechanism by which the eruptions resulted in the extinction of so many different species, both in the oceans and on land. Associate professor Laura Wasylenki of Northern Arizona University's School of Earth and Sustainability and Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry is co-author on a new paper in Nature Communications entitled, "Nickel isotopes link Siberian Traps aerosol particles to the end-Permian mass extinction," in collaboration with Chinese, Canadian and Swiss scientists. The paper presents the results of nickel isotope analyses performed in Wasylenki's lab on Late Permian sedimentary rocks collected in Arctic Canada. The samples have the lightest nickel isotope ratios ever measured in sedimentary rocks, and the only plausible explanation is that the nickel was sourced from the volcanic terrain, very likely carried by aerosol particles and deposited in the ocean, where it dramatically changed the chemistry of seawater and severely disrupted the marine ecosystem. "The study results provide strong evidence that nickel-rich particles were aerosolized and dispersed widely, both through the atmosphere and into the ocean," Wasylenki said. "Nickel is an essential trace metal for many organisms, but an increase in nickel abundance would have driven an unusual surge in productivity of methanogens, microorganisms that produce methane gas. Increased methane would have been tremendously harmful to all oxygen-dependent life." "Our data provide a direct link between global dispersion of Ni-rich aerosols, ocean chemistry changes and the mass extinction event," Wasylenki said. "The data also demonstrate that environmental degradation likely began well before the extinction event -- perhaps starting as early as 300,000 years before then. Prior to this study, the connection between Siberian Traps flood basalt volcanism, marine anoxia and mass extinction was rather vague, but now we have evidence of a specific kill mechanism. This finding demonstrates the power of nickel isotope analyses, which are relatively new, to solve long-standing problems in the geosciences." Wasylenki, who joined NAU in 2018, was formerly an igneous petrologist and then a specialist in calcite crystal growth and biomineralization. She now focuses on the use of metal stable isotope geochemistry to address geological, environmental and biological questions. Many of her recent and current projects have investigated metal isotope effects at solid-fluid interfaces, in particular during metal adsorption to oxyhydroxide mineral particles. This work has implications for ancient and modern geochemical cycles and environmental metal transport. Wasylenki's lab group, named Systematic Experimental Study and Analysis of Metals in the Environment (SESAME Lab), focuses on two main research themes, the cycling of transition metals in modern and ancient oceans and the environmental transport of toxic heavy metals.  The above story is based on <a href="https://nau.edu/nau-research/mass-extinction/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Materials</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> provided by <a href="http://www.nau.edu/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Northern Arizona University</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">.

Siberian Volcanic Eruptions Triggered End-Permian Mass Extinction

Fossilized crinoids, marine invertebrates that lived during the Permian Period, found in western Australia. Credit...John Cancalosi, via Get...

Earth Has a 27.5-Million-Year 'Heartbeat', But We Don't Know What Causes It

Earth History, Geology 6:00 PM

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZH7OCtS0W4g/YNCo5uV9p2I/AAAAAAAATJs/QZsiI86DbJ05CbBcySbGb72_1Xgdy6gEQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1290/the-geological-time-scale%2B%25281%2529.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="998" data-original-width="1290" height="496" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ZH7OCtS0W4g/YNCo5uV9p2I/AAAAAAAATJs/QZsiI86DbJ05CbBcySbGb72_1Xgdy6gEQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h496/the-geological-time-scale%2B%25281%2529.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>  In the last 260 million years, dinosaurs came and went, Pangea split into the continents and islands we see today, and humans have quickly and irreversibly changed the world we live in. Geologic activity on Earth appears to follow a 27.5-million-year cycle, giving the planet a "pulse," according to a new study published in the journal Geoscience Frontiers. "Many geologists believe that geological events are random over time. But our study provides statistical evidence for a common cycle, suggesting that these geologic events are correlated and not random," said Michael Rampino, a geologist and professor in New York University's Department of Biology, as well as the study's lead author. Over the past five decades, researchers have proposed cycles of major geological events--including volcanic activity and mass extinctions on land and sea--ranging from roughly 26 to 36 million years. But early work on these correlations in the geological record was hampered by limitations in the age-dating of geologic events, which prevented scientists from conducting quantitative investigations. However, there have been significant improvements in radio-isotopic dating techniques and changes in the geologic timescale, leading to new data on the timing of past events. Using the latest age-dating data available, Rampino and his colleagues compiled updated records of major geological events over the last 260 million years and conducted new analyses. The team analyzed the ages of 89 well-dated major geological events of the last 260 million years. These events include marine and land extinctions, major volcanic outpourings of lava called flood-basalt eruptions, events when oceans were depleted of oxygen, sea-level fluctuations, and changes or reorganization in the Earth's tectonic plates. They found that these global geologic events are generally clustered at 10 different timepoints over the 260 million years, grouped in peaks or pulses of roughly 27.5 million years apart. The most recent cluster of geological events was approximately 7 million years ago, suggesting that the next pulse of major geological activity is more than 20 million years in the future. The researchers posit that these pulses may be a function of cycles of activity in the Earth's interior--geophysical processes related to the dynamics of plate tectonics and climate. However, similar cycles in the Earth's orbit in space might also be pacing these events. "Whatever the origins of these cyclical episodes, our findings support the case for a largely periodic, coordinated, and intermittently catastrophic geologic record, which is a departure from the views held by many geologists," explained Rampino. The above story is based on <a href="https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-06/nyu-teh061821.php" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.nyu.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">New York University. </a>

Earth Has a 27.5-Million-Year 'Heartbeat', But We Don't Know What Causes It

In the last 260 million years, dinosaurs came and went, Pangea split into the continents and islands we see today, and humans have quickly...

The Dynamic, Geological Process Happening in Your Kidney

Geology, Researches 5:23 PM

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EmC0GhOEQoY/YMyrPyQFe-I/AAAAAAAATFg/1q9mxg2loc0V-mdKDU-OvFjNqaJsrfibwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1200/The%2BDynamic%252C%2BGeological%2BProcess%2BHappening%2Bin%2BYour%2BKidney%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1200" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EmC0GhOEQoY/YMyrPyQFe-I/AAAAAAAATFg/1q9mxg2loc0V-mdKDU-OvFjNqaJsrfibwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h480/The%2BDynamic%252C%2BGeological%2BProcess%2BHappening%2Bin%2BYour%2BKidney%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">kidney stones</td></tr></tbody></table>  Over a period of three months to three years, compounds like calcium, uric acid and bits of organic matter coalesce into the crystallized structure we know as the kidney stone. This formation process, as it turns out, is remarkably similar to geological processes in some coral reefs, hot springs and even ancient Roman aqueducts. After formation, they appear to dissolve, fracture and crystallize. When researchers probe the mineral layers in kidney stones, they find it looks much like a nanoscale version of the multi-colored strata of the Grand Canyon. For the past several years, a team of experts in geology, urology and nephrology have analyzed 90,000 kidney stones from all over the world. In a study published last month in the journal Nature Reviews Urology, the team reports on this formation process and proposes a new, geology-based way to classify kidney stones. What they found upends the previously accepted notion that once kidney stones form, they likely can’t dissolve under conditions found in the kidney. Instead, it appears that at least half of the stone’s volume goes through a process in which it dissolves and recrystallizes. This finding may shift how scientists approach kidney stones for years to come, from the way they’re treated to how they’re classified, and even how we understand the kidney’s microbial community. “This idea of life, water, mineral interaction is really fundamental to everything,” says Bruce Fouke, geobiologist and director of the Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center at the University of Illinois. “The human body is a life-water-mineral interaction machine.” <h4 style="text-align: left;">Reading 'Nature’s Record Book'</h4>Kidney stones are one of the oldest and most prevalent ailments. The oldest known kidney stone was found in an Egyptian burial cloth dating back to 4400 B.C. Cuneiform tablets from Ancient Babylonia suggest stone formation may be related to beer and water consumption. Today, 12 percent of the world’s population, or nearly one billion people, is estimated to have a kidney stone at any given time. <div style="width:100%;margin: 0px auto">
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</div> These typically form when there is an abundance of calcium, oxalate or uric acid in the kidney. These materials can crystallize without dilution from fluid in the kidney. The process of passing a kidney stone can be as painful as giving birth, according to some women who have experienced both. After kidney stones are removed from a person, either through natural passing or surgery, Fouke says that clinicians typically disregard them as no more than a crystallized lump. This paper turns that assumption on its head. “Probably the most high fidelity, high resolution and sensitive indicator of long term history of the kidney is actually a kidney stone,” says Fouke, who leads the team. To read this natural record, researchers can probe the mineralized layers using highly efficient slicing and imaging tools. Using a suite of established and novel tools, scientists can slice stones into sections as thin as rice paper. They then illuminate it with an ultraviolet light at a resolution of 10 nanometers, which makes the organic material in that section glow. They can create images showing the composition of each layer, allowing them to understand how compounds accumulate and dissolve in the kidney down to the minute. In hot springs and coral reefs, microbes spur quick mineralization. The human body, on the other hand, has evolved what Fouke calls an “arsenal” of bio compounds to protect the body by slowing kidney stone growth. However, kidney stones seem to form far more layers than what has been observed in comparable natural settings. Fouke says this process, called universal biomineralization, has been widely studied in geology but rarely applied to medicine. By approaching kidney stones from a geological lens, researchers created a new schema for classifying stones based on where they form in the kidney. Kidney stones are often characterized based on where they form within the kidney. The accepted schema has traditionally been that they can form in one of two places in the kidney — in what are known as Randall’s plaque and Randall’s plug. But when the team probed the chemical compositions of the stones, they realized the components of the stones could be derived from various places in the kidney. “In my work in coral reefs and hot springs and meteor impacts and all these other natural amazing environments on Earth, I saw great similarities, and they had nothing to do with Randall’s plaque or Randall’s plug,” Fouke says. The team proposed a new, more nuanced classification scheme, which characterizes stones based on the chemical, physical and biological processes underpinning their formation. <h4 style="text-align: left;">What This Means for Future Research</h4>Fouke says sometime in the near future, people may be able to better understand their kidney function after passing a kidney stone or having it removed. Within 15 minutes, clinicians may use a small benchtop lab to cut it and polish the stone, shine ultraviolet light on it and get a high sensitivity record of what the kidney is doing. As researchers understand more about how and why stones form, they may be able to introduce certain treatments like drugs that can interrupt the crystallization process or encourage dissolution. “We're too early to say exactly what treatment we have but I think once you start understanding what's going on, then one can imagine you might develop ways to interrupt that in a positive way,” says John Lieske, a nephrologist and director of Mayo Clinic’s Rare Kidney Stone Consortium and co-leader of the work. Lieske says this could be a “game shift” in terms of how urologists and nephrologists think about the chemistry of kidney stones. In upcoming studies, the team plans to build artificial environments where they can reproduce kidney stones to understand the role of different compounds. Kidney stones are a prime example of mineral accumulation in the human body. But research on biomineralization could be key for tackling issues like climate change, environmental sustainability, human medicine and even space exploration. “Biomineralization is so fundamental that life couldn't have started without it,” Fouke says. “And now we're seeing that there are a thousand applications within the human body and we’re just scratching the tip of the iceberg.” The above story is based on <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41585-021-00469-x" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by GeoBioMed.

The Dynamic, Geological Process Happening in Your Kidney

kidney stones Over a period of three months to three years, compounds like calcium, uric acid and bits of organic matter coalesce into the...

World’s Third Largest Diamond Discovered in Botswana

Diamonds, gemstones 3:48 PM

World’s Third Largest Diamond Discovered in Botswana

Botswana’s president, Mokgweetsi Masisi, inspects Debswana’s find. Photograph: Monirul Bhuiyan/AFP/Getty Images A 1,098-carat diamond, bel...

More Than 600 Earthquakes Hit Area Along San Andreas Fault Since Saturday

Earthquakes, News 7:44 PM

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4k5st3S7mYI/YMeGy9ltpmI/AAAAAAAATEs/bo1CjsOCdaMVEYygumPVITYH0LAbo-VrgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1170/Over%2B600%2Bearthquakes%2Bin%2BSouthern%2BCalifornia%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1170" height="370" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4k5st3S7mYI/YMeGy9ltpmI/AAAAAAAATEs/bo1CjsOCdaMVEYygumPVITYH0LAbo-VrgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h370/Over%2B600%2Bearthquakes%2Bin%2BSouthern%2BCalifornia%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>  A rural area of Southern California near the Mexico border and along the San Andreas fault line saw more than 600 earthquakes in a 24-hour period. California and Oregon dealt with several earthquakes since Friday, with the highest registering at 5.3 on the Richter scale. <a href="https://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/map/?extent=14.09396,-144.22852&extent=56.65623,-45.79102" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">According to the USGS map</a>, the majority of the earthquakes occurred near the city Calipatria, which lies alongside the San Andreas Fault and is about 30 miles north of the Mexican border. The strength of the quakes varied, with the strongest coming in at 5.3. The USGS map showed four of the earthquakes measuring above a 4 on the Richter scale, and at least 29 registering above a 3. California was not the only state on the West Coast to be affected, as two earthquakes near a magnitude of 6 occurred very close to Oregon on Friday, and even more on Sunday morning, ranging from 3.9 to 5.9. The San Andreas Fault is a continental transform fault that extends roughly 1,200 kilometers through California. It forms the tectonic boundary between the Pacific Plate and the North American Plate, and its motion is right-lateral strike-slip.

More Than 600 Earthquakes Hit Area Along San Andreas Fault Since Saturday

A rural area of Southern California near the Mexico border and along the San Andreas fault line saw more than 600 earthquakes in a 24-hour...

Earth's Inner Core Is Growing More on One Side Than the Other

earth, Geology, Researches 7:21 PM

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lAwMrqDe48o/YSUHNEQJ7QI/AAAAAAAATSQ/8cDUQsuaSigvnri5PRu8hJ2GKkO16XCAQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1080/crystalsinEarthcore750px%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1080" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lAwMrqDe48o/YSUHNEQJ7QI/AAAAAAAATSQ/8cDUQsuaSigvnri5PRu8hJ2GKkO16XCAQCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h426/crystalsinEarthcore750px%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Earth's Core Is Growing "Lopsided' and Scientists Don't Know Why" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"> The researchers concluded that this difference in seismic wave speed with direction results from a preferred alignment of the crystals — hexagonally close packed iron-nickel alloys, which are themselves anisotropic — parallel with Earth’s rotation axis. (Graphic by Daniel Frost)</td></tr></tbody></table> For reasons unknown, Earth’s solid-iron inner core is growing faster on one side than the other, and it has been ever since it started to freeze out from molten iron more than half a billion years ago, according to a new study by seismologists at the University of California, Berkeley. The faster growth under Indonesia’s Banda Sea hasn’t left the core lopsided. Gravity evenly distributes the new growth — iron crystals that form as the molten iron cools — to maintain a spherical inner core that grows in radius by an average of 1 millimeter per year. But the enhanced growth on one side suggests that something in Earth’s outer core or mantle under Indonesia is removing heat from the inner core at a faster rate than on the opposite side, under Brazil. Quicker cooling on one side would accelerate iron crystallization and inner core growth on that side. This has implications for Earth’s magnetic field and its history, because convection in the outer core driven by release of heat from the inner core is what today drives the dynamo that generates the magnetic field that protects us from dangerous particles from the sun. “We provide rather loose bounds on the age of the inner core — between half a billion and 1.5 billion years — that can be of help in the debate about how the magnetic field was generated prior to the existence of the solid inner core,” said Barbara Romanowicz, UC Berkeley Professor of the Graduate School in the Department of Earth and Planetary Science and emeritus director of the Berkeley Seismological Laboratory (BSL). “We know the magnetic field already existed 3 billion years ago, so other processes must have driven convection in the outer core at that time.” <div style="margin: 0px auto; width: 100%;">
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</div> The youngish age of the inner core may mean that, early in Earth’s history, the heat boiling the fluid core came from light elements separating from iron, not from crystallization of iron, which we see today. “Debate about the age of the inner core has been going on for a long time,” said Daniel Frost, assistant project scientist at the BSL. “The complication is: If the inner core has been able to exist only for 1.5 billion years, based on what we know about how it loses heat and how hot it is, then where did the older magnetic field come from? That is where this idea of dissolved light elements that then freeze out came from.” <h4 style="text-align: left;">Freezing iron</h4>Asymmetric growth of the inner core explains a three-decade-old mystery — that the crystallized iron in the core seems to be preferentially aligned along the rotation axis of the earth, more so in the west than in the east, whereas one would expect the crystals to be randomly oriented. Evidence for this alignment comes from measurements of the travel time of seismic waves from earthquakes through the inner core. Seismic waves travel faster in the direction of the north-south rotation axis than along the equator, an asymmetry that geologists attribute to iron crystals — which are asymmetric — having their long axes preferentially aligned along Earth’s axis. If the core is solid crystalline iron, how do the iron crystals get oriented preferentially in one direction? In an attempt to explain the observations, Frost and colleagues Marine Lasbleis of the Université de Nantes in France and Brian Chandler and Romanowicz of UC Berkeley created a computer model of crystal growth in the inner core that incorporates geodynamic growth models and the mineral physics of iron at high pressure and high temperature.   <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OWu8bUySLNE/YMeBxgwjZ8I/AAAAAAAATEk/SAncx2IG_EgWS3vBMDih6GnJlZMz9f1dwCLcBGAsYHQ/s1015/EDF1_PKPica_figure1_src_sta_V2-750px%2B%25281%2529.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="769" data-original-width="1015" height="484" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OWu8bUySLNE/YMeBxgwjZ8I/AAAAAAAATEk/SAncx2IG_EgWS3vBMDih6GnJlZMz9f1dwCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h484/EDF1_PKPica_figure1_src_sta_V2-750px%2B%25281%2529.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Map
 showing the seismometers (triangles) at which the researchers measured 
seismic waves from earthquakes (circles) to study Earth’s inner core. 
The stations colored cyan are where new measurements were made for the 
study, mostly sampling the inner core between the north and south poles.
 (UC Berkeley graphic by Daniel Frost) </td></tr></tbody></table>“The simplest model seemed a bit unusual — that the inner core is asymmetric,” Frost said. “The west side looks different from the east side all the way to the center, not just at the top of the inner core, as some have suggested. The only way we can explain that is by one side growing faster than the other.” The model describes how asymmetric growth — about 60% higher in the east than the west — can preferentially orient iron crystals along the rotation axis, with more alignment in the west than in the east, and explain the difference in seismic wave velocity across the inner core. “What we’re proposing in this paper is a model of lopsided solid convection in the inner core that reconciles seismic observations and plausible geodynamic boundary conditions,” Romanowicz said. Frost, Romanowicz and their colleagues will report their findings in this week’s issue of the journal Nature Geoscience. <h4 style="text-align: left;">Probing Earth’s interior with seismic waves</h4>Earth’s interior is layered like an onion. The solid iron-nickel inner core — today 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) in radius, or about three-quarters the size of the moon — is surrounded by a fluid outer core of molten iron and nickel about 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles) thick. The outer core is surrounded by a mantle of hot rock 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) thick and overlain by a thin, cool, rocky crust at the surface. Convection occurs both in the outer core, which slowly boils as heat from crystallizing iron comes out of the inner core, and in the mantle, as hotter rock moves upward to carry this heat from the center of the planet to the surface. The vigorous boiling motion in the liquid-iron outer core produces Earth’s magnetic field. According to Frost’s computer model, which he created with the help of Lasbleis, as iron crystals grow, gravity redistributes the excess growth in the east toward the west within the inner core. That movement of crystals within the rather soft solid of the inner core — which is close to the melting point of iron at these high pressures — aligns the crystal lattice along the rotation axis of Earth to a greater degree in the west than in the east. The model correctly predicts the researchers’ new observations about seismic wave travel times through the inner core: The anisotropy, or difference in travel times parallel and perpendicular to the rotation axis, increases with depth, and the strongest anisotropy is offset to the west from Earth’s rotation axis by about 400 kilometers (250 miles). The model of inner core growth also provides limits on the proportion of nickel to iron in the center of the earth, Frost said. His model does not accurately reproduce seismic observations unless nickel makes up between 4% and 8% of the inner core — which is close to the proportion in metallic meteorites that once presumably were the cores of dwarf planets in our solar system. The model also tells geologists how viscous, or fluid, the inner core is. “We suggest that the viscosity of the inner core is relatively large, an input parameter of importance to geodynamicists studying the dynamo processes in the outer core,” Romanowicz said.  The above story is based on <a href="https://news.berkeley.edu/2021/06/03/is-earths-core-lopsided-strange-goings-on-in-our-planets-interior/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by <a href="https://www.berkeley.edu/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">University of California, Berkeley.</a>

Earth's Inner Core Is Growing More on One Side Than the Other

The researchers concluded that this difference in seismic wave speed with direction results from a preferred alignment of the crystals — he...

99-Million-Year-Old Snail Fossilized in Amber While Giving Birth

amber, Fossils 6:18 PM

99-Million-Year-Old Snail Fossilized in Amber While Giving Birth

The mother snail and her young, marked with numbers. Image Credit: Tingting Yu A snail that lived alongside the dinosaurs has been found,...

Tiny Worm Comes Back to Life After 24,000 Years in Siberian Deep Freeze

Earth History, Researches 5:47 PM

Tiny Worm Comes Back to Life After 24,000 Years in Siberian Deep Freeze

Bdelloid rotifers are solely female and procreate by cloning themselves. Photograph: Michael Plewka/AFP/Getty Image A microscopic worm-lik...

What Causes the Deep Earth's Most Mysterious Earthquakes?

Earthquakes, Geology, Tectonic 6:51 PM

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ez8HZminLcE/YLj6LxMu66I/AAAAAAAATDY/WoyMv8ThDUs8p6eYLOUDQ-ICadKwY6xDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1410/what-causes-the-deep-e-1%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="855" data-original-width="1410" height="388" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ez8HZminLcE/YLj6LxMu66I/AAAAAAAATDY/WoyMv8ThDUs8p6eYLOUDQ-ICadKwY6xDgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h388/what-causes-the-deep-e-1%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Credit: Steven Shirey, Peter van Keken, Lara Wagner, and Michael Walter/Carnegie Institution for Science." width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Credit: Steven Shirey, Peter van Keken, Lara Wagner, and Michael Walter/Carnegie Institution for Science.</td></tr></tbody></table>  The cause of Earth's deepest earthquakes has been a mystery to science for more than a century, but a team of Carnegie scientists may have cracked the case. New research published in AGU Advances provides evidence that fluids play a key role in deep-focus earthquakes -- which occur between 300 and 700 kilometers below the planet's surface. The research team includes Carnegie scientists Steven Shirey, Lara Wagner, Peter van Keken, and Michael Walter, as well as the University of Alberta's Graham Pearson. Most earthquakes occur close to the Earth's surface, down to about 70 kilometers. They happen when stress builds up at a fracture between two blocks of rock -- known as a fault -- causing them to suddenly slide past each other. However, deeper into the Earth, the intense pressures create too much friction to allow this kind of sliding to occur and the high temperatures enhance the ability of rocks to deform to accommodate changing stresses. Though theoretically unexpected, scientists have been able to identify earthquakes that originate more than 300 kilometers below the surface since the 1920s. "The big problem that seismologists have faced is how it's possible that we have these deep-focus earthquakes at all," said Wagner. "Once you get a few tens of kilometers down, it becomes incredibly difficult to explain how we are getting slip on a fault when the friction is so incredibly high." Ongoing work over the past several decades has shown us that water plays a role in intermediate-depth earthquakes -- those that occur between 70 and 300 kilometers below Earth's surface. In these instances, water is released from minerals, which weakens the rock around the fault and allows the blocks of rock to slip. However, scientists didn't think this phenomenon could explain deep-focus earthquakes, largely because it was believed that water and other fluid-creating compounds couldn't make it far enough down into the Earth's interior to provide a similar effect. This thinking changed for the first time when Shirey and Wagner compared the depths of rare deep-Earth diamonds to the mysterious deep-focus earthquakes. "Diamonds form in fluids" explained Shirey, "if diamonds are there, fluids are there." The diamonds themselves indicated the presence of fluids, however, they also brought samples of the deep-Earth to the surface for the scientists to study. When diamonds form in the Earth's interior, they sometimes capture pieces of mineral from the surrounding rock. These minerals are called inclusions and they may make your jewelry less expensive, but they are invaluable to Earth scientists. They are one of the only ways scientists can study direct samples of our planet's deep interior. The diamond's inclusions had the distinct chemical signature of similar materials found in oceanic crust. This means that the water and other materials weren't somehow created deep in the Earth's interior. Instead, they were carried down as part of a sinking oceanic plate. Said Wagner: "The seismology community had moved away from the idea that there could be water that deep. But diamond petrologists like Steve were showing us samples and saying 'No, no, no. There's definitely water down here' So then we all had to get together to figure out how it got down there." To test the idea, Wagner and van Keken built advanced computational models to simulate the temperatures of sinking slabs at much greater depths than had been attempted before. In addition to the modeling, Walter examined the stabilities of the water-bearing minerals to show that under the intense heat and pressures of the Earth's deep interior, they would, indeed, be capable of holding on to water in certain conditions. The team showed that even though warmer plates didn't hold water, the minerals in the cooler oceanic plates could theoretically carry water to the depths we associate with deep-focus earthquakes. To solidify the study the team compared the simulations to real-life seismological data. They were able to show that the slabs that could theoretically carry water to these depths were also the ones experiencing the previously unexplained deep earthquakes. This study is unusual in applying four different disciplines -- geochemistry, seismology, geodynamics, and petrology -- to the same question, all of which point to the same conclusion: water and other fluids are a key component of deep-focus earthquakes. "The nature of deep earthquakes is one of the big questions in geoscience," said Shirey. "We needed all four of these different disciplines to come together to make this argument. It turned out we had them all in-house at Carnegie." The authors thank the Carnegie Institution for Science and the University of Alberta for continuing support. Diamond research is supported by the Deep Carbon Observatory and the U.S. National Science Foundation. The Carnegie Institution for Science (carnegiescience.edu) is a private, nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with three research divisions on both coasts. Since its founding in 1902, the Carnegie Institution has been a pioneering force in basic scientific research. Carnegie scientists are leaders in the life and environmental sciences, Earth and planetary science, and astronomy and astrophysics.  The above story is based on <a href="https://carnegiescience.edu/news/what-causes-deep-earths-most-mysterious-earthquakes" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Materials</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;"> provided by <a href="https://carnegiescience.edu/" rel="nofollow" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; border-radius: 0px !important; box-sizing: border-box; color: #004276; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;" target="_blank">Carnegie Institution for Science</a><span style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: white; color: #333333; display: inline !important; float: none; font-size: 14px; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-decoration-color: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">.

What Causes the Deep Earth's Most Mysterious Earthquakes?

Credit: Steven Shirey, Peter van Keken, Lara Wagner, and Michael Walter/Carnegie Institution for Science. The cause of Earth's deepest...

Man Hunts for Engagement Ring Gemstone, Digs Up 2.2-carat Diamond

Diamonds, places to visit, USA 5:51 PM

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lQXDFeo13Tc/YLZIUgZtOQI/AAAAAAAATDE/-RsfkxqfSWMG1tfseXnwDX3KneRsRUtDgCLcBGAsYHQ/s1109/Christian%2BLiden%2BWashington%2BSunshine%2B2.20%2Bcarat%2B%25281%2529%2B%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="840" data-original-width="1109" height="484" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-lQXDFeo13Tc/YLZIUgZtOQI/AAAAAAAATDE/-RsfkxqfSWMG1tfseXnwDX3KneRsRUtDgCLcBGAsYHQ/w640-h484/Christian%2BLiden%2BWashington%2BSunshine%2B2.20%2Bcarat%2B%25281%2529%2B%25281%2529.jpg" title="Man Hunts for Engagement Ring Gemstone, Digs Up 2.2-carat Diamond" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christian Liden's Washington Sunshine Diamond </td></tr></tbody></table>  A Washington man made a wonderful discovery while he was mining materials for an engagement ring.It’s thrilling when hard work pays off. For years, 26-year-old Christian Liden, of Poulsbo, Wash., has wanted to find the raw materials to make his own engagement ring. He started by panning for gold around his home state. After five years, he had accumulated enough for the ring. Liden recently embarked on a mining excursion that led him across the country to Arkansas’s Crater of Diamonds State Park to collect gemstones for his creation.   Liden and a longtime friend left Washington on May 1. They built their own mining equipment to search with and tested it at a Montana sapphire mine along the way. The friends arrived at Arkansas’s diamond site late on Friday, May 7. “We spent about an hour in the field that afternoon and returned early the next morning to mine all day,” Liden said. On his third day at the Crater of Diamonds, Liden was wet sifting when he finally spotted what he had traveled more than 2,000 miles in search of. “I saw it shining as soon as I turned the screen over and immediately knew it was a diamond. I was shaking so bad, I asked my buddy to grab it out of the gravel for me!” Liden placed the gem in a plastic bag and carried it to the park’s Diamond Discovery Center, where staff confirmed he had found a large, yellow diamond.   “I love hearing each story of how a visitor to Crater of Diamonds State Park finds a significant diamond,” said Stacy Hurst, secretary of the Arkansas Department of Parks, Heritage, and Tourism. “It’s a moment they’ll never forget, and it’s always exciting that our park gets to be a part of that.”   Weighing 2.20 carats, Liden’s diamond is the largest found at the park since last October, when a visitor from Fayetteville, Ark. discovered a 4.49-carat yellow diamond. He found it in dirt from the West Drain of the park’s 37.5-acre diamond search area, the surface of an ancient, diamond-bearing volcanic pipe. “As beautiful as this diamond is, I think the best part is the story behind it,” Edmonds continued. “Since the eighth grade, Mr. Liden has dreamed of creating a special ring for his future wife, with stones and gold he mined, himself. And now he can make that dream come true!”   Though he’s found other gemstones, Liden was surprised by his success at the Crater of Diamonds. “I was just hoping to find a couple smaller stones and had planned to buy a center stone later, but that won’t be needed now!”   After leaving the Crater of Diamonds, Liden plans to mine for opals in Nevada before returning home. Once he proposes, Liden says he wants to design an engagement ring with his bride-to-be using his diamond and other gemstones collected along his cross-country mining quest.   Finders of large Crater diamonds often choose to name their gems. Liden has named his diamond the Washington Sunshine, “because it's got a nice, light yellow color, just like sunlight in Washington.”   As of this publication, 121 diamonds have been registered at Crater of Diamonds State Park in 2021, weighing more than 20 carats. An average of one to two diamonds are found by park visitors each day. <a href="https://www.geologyin.com/2016/08/the-only-diamond-mine-in-world-where.html" target="_blank">See also: The Only Diamond Mine In the World Where You Can Be the Miner</a> The above story is based on <a href="https://www.arkansasstateparks.com/articles/visitor-finds-two-carat-diamond-crater-diamonds-state-park" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">materials </a>provided by Arkansas State Parks.

Man Hunts for Engagement Ring Gemstone, Digs Up 2.2-carat Diamond

Christian Liden's Washington Sunshine Diamond A Washington man made a wonderful discovery while he was mining materials for an engageme...

Geology In