New minerals found in lunar meteorites

A European research team discovered a new high-pressure mineral named "Dornville hymes Stone" (CAAL4S2O 1 1) in the lunar meteorite Oued Awlitis 00 1.

In addition to about 382 kilograms of rocks and soil collected by Apollo and lunar missions, lunar meteorites can also give people a valuable understanding of the formation of the moon. These meteorites were ejected to the surface of the moon by impact and then sent to the earth.

Some of these meteorites have experienced extremely high temperatures and pressures. Extreme physical conditions often lead to the oscillation and melting of microscopic areas in these meteorites. These oscillation regions are highly correlated, because they reflect the situation similar to the pressure and temperature mechanisms prevailing in the earth's mantle. Therefore, these microscopic shock melting zones are natural crucibles, which can contain minerals that cannot be naturally touched by the earth's surface. Minerals such as Wadely stone, wood stone and Bridgman stone make up most of the earth's mantle. These crystals were synthesized in high-pressure experiments in the laboratory. As natural minerals, they were originally described and named according to their appearance in meteorites.

The new mineral "Dornwell hymes Stone" is a high-pressure mineral found in meteorites for the first time, and has been applied to the underlying land sediments. It is mainly composed of calcium, aluminum, silicon and oxygen atoms. "Dornville hymes Stone" was discovered in the shock melting zone of the moon meteorite Oued Awlitis 00 1 which was discovered in Western Sahara in 20 14. The composition of this meteorite is similar to the rocks that make up the earth's continent. Corrosive sediments from these continents are carried to the ocean by wind and rivers, and dive into the mantle as part of the dense ocean crust. When dragged into the deep mantle, the pressure and temperature increase, and the minerals are transformed into denser mineral phases. This newly discovered mineral was formed at a depth of 460 to 700 kilometers. Therefore, in the terrestrial rock cycle, "Donna hymes Stone" is an important medium for transporting crustal sediments through the transition zone where the upper mantle and the lower mantle are separated.

It is very important to get the moon meteorite, understand this new mineral, understand its scientific significance, and determine the crystal structure of this tiny mineral crystal with a thickness of only one thousandth of a millimeter with high precision. Richard Worth, a scientist at the Earth Science Research Center in Potsdam, Germany, said: "We use transmission electron microscope to investigate the microstructure of samples, which once again highlights the importance of transmission electron microscope in earth science."

This new mineral is named after the lunar geologist Donne Will hymes, an American scientist who participated in the landing site selection and data analysis of the Apollo space mission and brought the first lunar rock samples back to Earth.

Scientists involved in the research come from the Nordlingen Center in Germany, the German Earth Science Research Center in Potsdam, the Berlin Museum of Natural Science, the Vienna Museum of Natural History, the Institute of Physics of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Oslo Museum of Natural History, the University of Manchester and the German Aerospace Center. Their findings were published in the scientific journal American Mineralogist.