Mineral Physics Commons^™

The Fate Of Carbonate Rocks During Hypervelocity Impacts: Case Studies From Three Impact Structures On Earth, Nicolas D. Garroni

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Approximately 28% of all hypervelocity impact structures discovered on Earth exist in a carbonate-dominated target sequence. Despite decades of research, how carbonate rocks and minerals react to shock metamorphism is still poorly understood. In this contribution, three impact structures on Earth were studied to determine the effects of shock metamorphism on carbonate minerals: Chicxulub, Crooked Creek and Jebel Waqf as Suwwan.

At Chicxulub, carbonates from the impact-melt bearing breccia of drill core, M0077A were characterized petrographically and geochemically. Calcite was the only carbonate mineral present and is abundant throughout the impact breccia in five distinct varieties: limestone clasts …

A Study Of The Cultural And Geological Environment Of The Magic Mountain Site In Golden, Colorado, Brianna K. Dalessandro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Magic Mountain site, located in Golden, Colorado, has been the subject of intensive academic studies since the 1950s because of its extensive artifact assemblage and long habitation periods. The aim of this thesis was to use ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry, GIS models, and lithic analysis to further study when and how the Magic Mountain site was used during prehistoric times and contextualize a variety of hypotheses about site habitation and migratory patterns of prehistoric people in Colorado.

The results of these analyses indicate the habitation and migratory pattern of the Magic Mountain site was a periodic, but consistent, proximal visitation …

Textural And Mineral Analysis Of Pegmatites From The Pala And Mesa Grande Districts In San Diego, California, Gabrielle Potter

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

San Diego pegmatites of the Pala and Mesa Grande mining districts are world renowned for their gem-quality minerals and their Li-bearing mineral phases. Pegmatite genesis, especially in San Diego mines, has been a debated topic since the 1900’s (Morgan and London, 2012). Pegmatite genesis is caused by partial melting processes and fractional crystallization that form granitic melts with high concentrations of rare earth elements (REE), such as lithium. Assessing the exact mineralogy and determining the overall textures can provide insight into the crystallization history of pegmatites. In the San Diego pegmatites, lithium-bearing phases, such as lepidolite and pink elbaite (a …

Natural, Experimental, And Educational Explorations Of The Interiors Of Terrestrial Planetary Bodies, Nadine L. Grambling

Doctoral Dissertations

Planetary interiors are enigmatic, inaccessible, and vital to the processes that have formed the rocks we see on the surface of bodies in the inner Solar System today. Based on geophysical explorations of the Moon and Earth, along with information gleaned from rocks at the surface today, there is understanding of the basic structure and processes at depth. Using a combination of natural samples and experimental studies, we attempt to learn more about the physical conditions beneath the surface, and their effect on material properties and tectonics processes in the mantle.

On Earth, mid-ocean ridge processes have long been debated, …

Calcite Spherulite Formations And Their Controls In Halophilic Bacterial Cultures, Zakaria Jibrin

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This study arose from an accidental discovery of calcite spherulites forming on colonies of various halophilic bacteria grown on solid Luria-Bertani medium made containing water from a brine pool in Death Valley, their natural habitat. Further studies with a large spherulite forming bacteria, Pseudoalteromonas haloplanktis, showed that calcite precipitation conditions were the consequence of bacteria using amino acids as a source of carbon and energy, a metabolism that produces NH3 and CO2 waste products. NH3 raises the pH of the medium, turning CO2 into CO32-. Calcium in the natural brine combines with CO32-. The resulting spherulitic calcite precipitation is nano-acicular …

Analysis Of Critical Mineral Strategies Of Us And Eu And Their Enlightenment To China

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

As the world's major consumers of critical minerals and China's primary competitors, US and the EU have developed comprehensive and systematic critical mineral strategies, which have significant impact on China's resource security. To assist in developing China's critical mineral strategy, by thoroughly examining the critical mineral strategies of US and EU, this study finds their strategic attempts to slow China's development, summarizes their characteristics in the preparation, implementation mechanism, and main strategic measures, and, based on this, proposes suggestions for raising the safety level of China's critical minerals.

Security Of China’S Strategic And Critical Minerals Under Background Of Great Power Competition, Anjian Wang, Xiaojing Yuan

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Strategic and critical minerals are a type of resource that is essential to the country's economic development, indispensable to strategic emerging industries, and closely related to geopolitics. The types of strategic and critical minerals show some laws of spatial-temporal evolution due to the different stages of national economic development, economic structure and global industrial division of labor. Especially since the new century, with the rapid development of strategic emerging industries such as information technology, artificial intelligence and renewable energy, the connotation of strategic critical minerals has been continuously extended and closely connected with the industrial chain, highlighting its important position …

Recycling Of Critical Metals In Green And Low-Carbon Transition: Strategies And Countermeasures, Gang Liu, Litao Liu, Xin Ouyang, Qiance Liu, Xiang Li, Qiang Yan

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

As green and low-carbon transition has gained world-wide recognition and become the inherent requirement of fully building a modern socialist China, the consumption of critical metals will increase drastically in the next decades. Meanwhile, this will mean a continually increasing potential of critical metals recycling. Facing changes and pandemic unseen in a century and increasing geopolitical conflicts, it has become a strategic consensus on the national security level for Western countries like the United States and Europe Union to acknowledge and enhance the role of recycling in secure provision of critical metals. Here, in this study, we have discussed the …

Challenges And Security Strategies Of China’S Critical Metals Supply For Carbon Neutrality Pledge, Weiqiang Chen, Peng Wang, Weiqiong Zhong

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

The grand transition to low-carbon energy system is essential to bend the growing carbon emission and further achieve the dual carbon goals. Critical metals such as rare earth elements, lithium, cobalt, nickel, and platinum are widely considered as the material base to support low-carbon technologies. However, given the supply of those metals are scarce and risky, the emerging conflicts between their supply and demand have spurred global attention and competition among countries. This study aims to explore the linkage between critical metals and low-carbon energy systems with a particular focus on the bottlenecks of China's supply chains of those critical …

China’S Rare Earth Supply And Demand Pattern And Balanced Utilization Strategy From Perspective Of Elements, Tao Dai, Tianming Gao, Bojie Wen

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Rare earth is one of the key minerals in the global competition. At present, the global rare earth resources and supply pattern are changing, and Western countries are actively building a supply chain to replace China. This paper describes the evolution of China's rare earth supply and demand pattern from the perspective of elements, analyzes the dislocation of supply and demand of China's rare earth elements and the challenges it faces under the great changes, and puts forward the balanced utilization strategy of rare earth elements, which provides an optimization plan for promoting the globalization of the industrial chain and …

Single-Crystal Elasticity Of Earth’S Mantle Transition Zone Minerals And High Pressure-Temperature Phase Equilibrium Experiments On Martian Basalts, Wenyi Zhou

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Wadsleyite and ringwoodite are major minerals in the Earth’s Mantle Transition Zone. Global and local seismic studies have detected strong lateral variations in seismic velocity and anisotropy in the Mantle Transition Zone, reflecting temperature and possible composition variations. Interpretation of these seismic observations requires knowledge of thermoelastic properties of wadsleyite and ringwoodite with different compositions (water and Fe contents) under high pressure-temperature conditions. In this dissertation, we have measured single-crystal elastic properties of wadsleyite and ringwoodite under high pressure-temperature conditions by Brillouin spectroscopy. Based on our measurements and previous experimental results, we further model the effects of water and Fe …

A Pressure And Stress Study Of Reidite, Gillian G. Noonan

Undergraduate Student Research Internships Conference

Zircon is a mineral that can commonly be found in many rocks in the Earth’s crust and other planetary bodies. Meteorite impact sites have also been shown to contain zircon and its high-pressure polymorph, Reidite.

Deformation Of Antigorite + Olivine Aggregates: Implications For Mantle Wedge Dynamics, Roselyn K. Hurlow

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Aggregates with varying volume proportions of antigorite and olivine were deformed at mantle wedge conditions of high-pressure (P) (2.5-7.6 GPa), -temperature (T) (675 K), and strain rates from ~1.0*10^-5 to ~1.0*10^-4 s^-1 using the deformation-DIA (D-DIA) to investigate deformation mechanisms and stress/strain partitioning. Macroscopic strain, lattice strain, and texture were measured in situ using synchrotron x-ray diffraction and radiography and were modeled for olivine using Elasto-Viscoplastic Self-Consistent (EVPSC) simulations. These modeled results are coupled with microstructure images and electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) measurements results to determine stress and deformation mechanisms. Previous to this study, investigations have been …

Heat Flow In Terrestrial-Type Bodies From High P,T Electrical Resistivity Measurements Of Au, Fe-Si And Fe-Ni-Si Solid And Liquid Alloys, Meryem Berrada

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The source of the fluid stirring mechanism that powers the dynamo of terrestrial-type bodies during their active magnetic field era is debated. Prior to the formation of a solid inner core, thermal convection may cause enough mechanical stirring of the core fluid to generate a magnetic field through dynamo action. After inner core formation, compositional convection in the liquid outer core becomes the main source of fluid stirring mechanism to power a dynamo. Constraints on the likelihood and duration of these convection mechanisms may be obtained by the experimental determination of the thermal properties of core materials. These cores consist …

Using Geologic Principles And Data To Create A Symphony For Wind Ensemble, Thomas J. Davis

2022 Symposium

Geology and geologic processes have featured in many pieces of classical music such as Alan Hovhaness’ symphonic works after Mt. St. Helens and Glacier Peak but these pieces are impressionistic and only take general inspiration from the geology of their subjects. This paper describes the creation of Tectonics (2021) a piece which incorporates and describes many geologic principles and processes, such as mantle convection, through the musical form of cannon, the formation of fold and thrust belts whose cross sections are directly visually recreated in the score, and the physical dynamics of earthquake waves demonstrated through variations of pitch and …

Investigation Of Dissolution Behavior Of Scandium And Lithium From Red Mud, Hüseyin Baştürkcü

Bulletin of the Mineral Research and Exploration

In this study, scandium and lithium extractions were investigated using the atmospheric pressure agitation leaching method at acidic medium. The leaching tests were carried out at two stages. To remove the ionic impurities such as Na and Al first stage leaching was performed at relatively higher pH. Following solid-liquid separation of leach cake of the first stage leaching, it was subjected to the second stage leaching. The second stage leaching resulted in 95.1% Sc and 94.7% Li extractions. The overall Sc and Li recoveries were determined as 82.4% and 86.5%, respectively. Regarding the kinetic studies, it was understood that scandium …

Quantification Of Organic Carbon Sequestered By Biogenic Iron Sulfide Minerals In Long-Term Anoxic Laboratory Incubations, Nader Nabeh, Cheyenne Brokaw, Aude Picard

Life Sciences Faculty Research

Organic carbon sequestration in sedimentary environments controls oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere. While minerals play an important role in the preservation of organic carbon, there is a lack of understanding about the formation and stability of organo-mineral interactions in anoxic environments, especially those involving authigenic iron sulfide minerals. In this study, we quantified organic carbon and nitrogen sequestered in biogenic iron sulfide minerals co-precipitated with sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB) in freshwater and marine conditions in long-term laboratory experiments. The amounts of C and N associated with biogenic iron sulfide minerals increased with increasing cell biomass concentrations available in …

Electron-Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy Of Mgo And Aluminum-Doped Mgo, Elise Liebow

Honors Theses

Radiation is a form of energy that can damage materials at an atomic level. This has implications for the mobility of radioactive waste through containment materials. We are characterizing atomic defects in materials by using Electron-Positron Annihilation Lifetime Spectroscopy (EPALS). When an electron and positron come into contact with each other, they annihilate and release two antiparallel 511-keV gamma rays. In a pristine crystalline sample, positrons can easily annihilate with electrons, but in a sample with vacancies/defects in the crystal structure, positrons take longer to annihilate. Therefore, the more vacancies in a sample, the longer the average lifetime of a …

Viscous Anisotropy Of Wet Olivine Aggregates, Megan Ryan

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

I will deform natural olivine aggregates (Anita Bay dunite) cores in various orientations relative to a natural mineral alignment in the rock under both dry and wet conditions. Different orientations in regards to this mineral alignment will produce deformation on different slip systems. Stress measurements will be taken during the deformation of the samples in order to characterize any changes in viscous anisotropy observed due to the changes in slip system. Anita Bay dunite is a proxy for the main mineral found in the mantle wedge of subduction zones. Therefore, understanding the transformation of viscosity and slip systems in this …

Pascoite Minerals And Potential Application Of Nmr Spectroscopy, Craig C. Mclauchlan, Beth Trent-Ringer, Debbie C. Crans

Faculty Publications – Chemistry

The 20 minerals encompassing the pascoite family of decavanadate isopolyanion-containing [V₁₀O₂₈]⁶⁻ minerals include a few minerals, such as rakovanite, that have been described as containing a protonated decavanadate anion. Rakovanite was originally assigned the formula Na₃[H₃V₁₀O₂₈]•15H₂O and now is redefined with an ideal formula (NH₄)₃Na₃[V₁₀O₂₈]•12H₂O. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and particularly ⁵¹V NMR spectroscopy is an informative method used to describe the protonation state and speciation in both solid and solution states …