Scientists have identified two minerals never before seen on Earth in a meteorite weighing 15.2 metric tonnes.
Pictured is a sample of the El Ali meteorite found in Somalia. The specimen contains two minerals that don't naturally form on Earth, scientists said.
Chris Herd, curator of the university's meteorite collection, received samples of the space rock so he could classify it. As he was examining it, something unusual caught his eye — some parts of the sample weren't identifiable by a microscope. He then sought advice from Andrew Locock, head of the university's Electron Microprobe Laboratory, since Locock has experience describing new minerals.
Herd named the second one elkinstantonite after Lindy Elkins-Tanton, vice president of Arizona State University's Interplanetary Initiative. Elkins-Tanton is also a regents professor in that university's School of Earth and Space Exploration and the principal investigator of NASA's upcoming Psyche mission — a journey to a metal-rich asteroid orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter, according to the space agency.
"Whenever you find a new mineral, it means that the actual geological conditions, the chemistry of the rock, was different than what's been found before," Herd said. "That's what makes this exciting: In this particular meteorite you have two officially described minerals that are new to science.
Both new minerals are phosphates of iron, Tschauner said. A phosphate is a salt or ester of a phosphoric acid.
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