#mineralmonday: your weekly* dose of obscure mineralogy, every Monday** [*not guaranteed; **or possibly Tuesday-Sunday] What is it? emmonsite, Fe2Te3O9.2H2O What’s it made of? Iron (Fe), tellurium (Te), oxygen (O) and water (H2O) I think I remember tellurium from chemistry class – remind me what it is? We can more or less divide the elements into the metals and the non-metals – t ...[Read More]
#mineralmonday: your weekly* dose of obscure mineralogy, every Monday** [*not guaranteed; **or possibly Tuesday-Sunday] What is it? Gadolinite-(Y),Y2FeBe2Si2O10 What’s it made of?: It’s a silicate (a mineral containing silicon (Si) and oxygen (O)) also containing yttrium (Y), beryllium (Be) and iron (Fe). Yttrium is a rare earth element – somewhat of a misnomer as in general they ...[Read More]
There are some crystals that we are all familiar with. Look at an analogue clock (you may need a screwdriver and/or a hammer, and the watch owner might not be too happy) and you will probably find quartz – a crystal with silicon and oxygen arranged in a well-ordered three dimensional pattern. We can also describe quartz as silicon dioxide, which describes its chemistry – one silicon for every two ...[Read More]
The last decade has been inundated with reports of environmental disasters impacting the lives of billions of people around the world. While news coverage of floods, hurricanes, earthquakes or wild fires are always accompanied with spectacular images of destruction that emphasise the speed at which they strike, a myriad of slow and latent hazards have been left in the shadow of the public attenti ...[Read More]