The discovery of a NW mineral isn’t an everyday occurrence but a couple in Australia found a new purple-pink mineral that has a chemical composition and crystalline structure unlike any of the known 4,000 minerals has been discovered at a mining site in Western Australia. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
Following is the official Press Release from the University of Adelaide:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
New mineral shows nature’s infinite variability<\/h1>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Tuesday, 22 April 2014<\/strong><\/div>\n
A University of Adelaide mineralogy researcher has discovered a new mineral that is unique in structure and composition among the world’s 4,000 known mineral species.<\/div>\n
Published in Mineralogical Magazine<\/i>, Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences<\/a> Dr Peter Elliott has described ‘putnisite’, found in a surface outcrop at Lake Cowan, north of Norseman in Western Australia.<\/div>\n
“What defines a mineral is its chemistry and crystallography,” says Dr Elliott, who is also a Research Associate with the South Australian Museum<\/a>.<\/div>\n
“By x-raying a single crystal of mineral you are able to determine its crystal structure and this, in conjunction with chemical analysis, tells you everything you need to know about the mineral.<\/div>\n
“Most minerals belong to a family or small group of related minerals, or if they aren’t related to other minerals they often are to a synthetic compound – but putnisite is completely unique and unrelated to anything.<\/div>\n
“Nature seems to be far cleverer at dreaming up new chemicals than any researcher in a laboratory.”<\/div>\n
The new mineral occurs as tiny crystals, no more than 0.5 mm in diameter and is found on a volcanic rock. It appears as dark pink spots on dark green and white rock which, under the microscope, appears as square, cube-like crystals. It combines the elements strontium, calcium, chromium, sulphur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen – a very unusual combination. It has yet to be determined if the new mineral will have any practical use.<\/div>\n
The mineral was discovered during prospecting by a mining company in WA and handed on to CSIRO for initial research and then to Dr Elliott for more detailed analysis.<\/div>\n
Dr Elliott has researched 12 new Australian minerals in the past seven years and seven of those he found himself.<\/div>\n
Two of these new minerals were discovered in South Australia – domerockite and hylbrownite – named respectively after Dome Rock, where the mineral was first was found, and Henry Yorke Lyle Brown, Government Geologist of South Australia from 1882-1912.<\/div>\n
Putnisite has been named for Australian mineralogists Andrew and Christine Putnis.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
From mining.com:<\/div>\n
Putnisite is translucent and brittle.The mineral has no known practical uses. Some of theelements in putnisite<\/a> are carbon, calcium, chromium and strontium. It’s chemical formula is the following:<\/div>\n
\n
SrCa4<\/span>Cr3+<\/span>8<\/span>(CO3<\/span>)8<\/span>SO4<\/span>(OH)16<\/span>\u00b723H2<\/span>O<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The new mineral’s name, putnisite, is still not official. It has to be approved by the International Mineralogical Association.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
<\/a><\/div>\n
The discovery of a NW mineral isn’t an everyday occurrence but a couple in Australia found a new purple-pink mineral that has a chemical composition and crystalline structure unlike any of the known 4,000 minerals has been discovered at a mining site in Western Australia. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n
Following is the official Press Release from the University of Adelaide:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n
New mineral shows nature’s infinite variability<\/h1>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n\n\n\n
<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
Tuesday, 22 April 2014<\/strong><\/div>\n
A University of Adelaide mineralogy researcher has discovered a new mineral that is unique in structure and composition among the world’s 4,000 known mineral species.<\/div>\n
Published in Mineralogical Magazine<\/i>, Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences<\/a> Dr Peter Elliott has described ‘putnisite’, found in a surface outcrop at Lake Cowan, north of Norseman in Western Australia.<\/div>\n
“What defines a mineral is its chemistry and crystallography,” says Dr Elliott, who is also a Research Associate with the South Australian Museum<\/a>.<\/div>\n
“By x-raying a single crystal of mineral you are able to determine its crystal structure and this, in conjunction with chemical analysis, tells you everything you need to know about the mineral.<\/div>\n
“Most minerals belong to a family or small group of related minerals, or if they aren’t related to other minerals they often are to a synthetic compound – but putnisite is completely unique and unrelated to anything.<\/div>\n
“Nature seems to be far cleverer at dreaming up new chemicals than any researcher in a laboratory.”<\/div>\n
The new mineral occurs as tiny crystals, no more than 0.5 mm in diameter and is found on a volcanic rock. It appears as dark pink spots on dark green and white rock which, under the microscope, appears as square, cube-like crystals. It combines the elements strontium, calcium, chromium, sulphur, carbon, oxygen and hydrogen – a very unusual combination. It has yet to be determined if the new mineral will have any practical use.<\/div>\n
The mineral was discovered during prospecting by a mining company in WA and handed on to CSIRO for initial research and then to Dr Elliott for more detailed analysis.<\/div>\n
Dr Elliott has researched 12 new Australian minerals in the past seven years and seven of those he found himself.<\/div>\n
Two of these new minerals were discovered in South Australia – domerockite and hylbrownite – named respectively after Dome Rock, where the mineral was first was found, and Henry Yorke Lyle Brown, Government Geologist of South Australia from 1882-1912.<\/div>\n
Putnisite has been named for Australian mineralogists Andrew and Christine Putnis.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
From mining.com:<\/div>\n
Putnisite is translucent and brittle.The mineral has no known practical uses. Some of theelements in putnisite<\/a> are carbon, calcium, chromium and strontium. It’s chemical formula is the following:<\/div>\n
\n
SrCa4<\/span>Cr3+<\/span>8<\/span>(CO3<\/span>)8<\/span>SO4<\/span>(OH)16<\/span>·23H2<\/span>O<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The new mineral’s name, putnisite, is still not official. It has to be approved by the International Mineralogical Association.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":102,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2139,2140,2141],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/dailyjewel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/dailyjewel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/dailyjewel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/dailyjewel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/102"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/dailyjewel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/dailyjewel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1639\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/dailyjewel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/dailyjewel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/userblogs.ganoksin.com\/dailyjewel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}