Departments Archives

Book Review — Pegmatites and their Gem Minerals

Pegmatites and their Gem Minerals is a comprehensive reference for geoscientists, gemologists and gem dealers, mineral collectors, and anyone interested in the occurrences that have supplied some of the world’s finest mineral and gem crystals, as well as the geological conditions that allowed for the formation of these fascinating igneous rocks. It is a magnificent publication.

The Golden Age of Mineralogy: Reflections by IMA Medalists

By Frank C. Hawthorne and Nikolay V. Sobolev |

For the present Perspectives, we have asked the recipients of the IMA Medal of Excellence (www.imamineralogy.org/Medal.htm) to reflect on their personal “Golden Age” experience and share their thoughts on the past, present, and future of mineral sciences.

Tectonic Petrameter

By Esther Posner |

Geologists study the Earth to learn our planet’s natural history. But the reason behind the planet’s birth still remains a mystery. Won’t you join me on a very special journey through geologic time? Four billion, six hundred million years have passed so please don’t mind me if I move somewhat fast through the story. Rocks are the geologist’s inventory of information. They give us clues to their formation. Ever since its creation, the Earth has been dynamic and constantly changing. All of our panoramic views are always rearranging themselves ever so slowly over time. The oldest slice of time is called the Precambrian which is broken into three, beginning with Hadean, and as you can see, our Earth is thought to have been covered by a sea of magma! Could you have handled it? A bombardment of meteorites also hit and continue to hit our planet.

Radioiodine Contamination Caused

By Takeshi Ohno |

The Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami happened on 11 March 2011, which caused the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP) accident. The accident resulted in a substantial release of radio-nuclides, including ¹³¹I, ¹³⁴Cs, and ¹³⁷Cs, into the atmosphere, causing signiﬁcant environmental contamination. This was a particular issue in many parts of eastern Japan, especially in the Fukushima Prefecture (Yoshida and Takahashi 2012). Among the above-mentioned radioactive isotopes, ¹³¹I is one of the most critical radionuclides to be monitored after an accidental reactor release due to its tendency to accumulate in the human thyroid gland.

v18n1 From the Editors

By Richard Harrison, Becky Lange, Janne Blichert-Toft, Esther Posner and Jodi J. Rosso |

In this issue, we follow the halogen group elements (fluorine, chlorine, bromine, and iodine) from the Earth’s interior to surface—and even beyond! In a similar vein to two previous Elements issues that also explored groups of elements united by common properties (Rare Earth Elements; October 2012 and Platinum Group Elements; August 2008), this issue similarly showcases the wide diversity of research that is encompassed by halogen mineralogy and geochemistry. Over the last several decades, the halogens have increasingly come into the spotlight, possibly due to improving methods for measuring ultra-low abundance bromine and iodine in geologic materials, as well as isotopes of chlorine and bromine. The result of this increased enthusiasm for halogens is deftly covered over six articles by this issue’s authors—from halogens in Earth and planetary systems to experimental petrology and analytical developments, there truly is something for everyone.

Beware the Bromides

By Becky Lange |

With respect to Br, I was not meaningfully introduced to the term “bromide” until I was an undergraduate at UC Berkeley. Not in chemistry lab, but rather in a Comparative Literature course. The term “bromide!” was scrawled in red, repeatedly, all over my essay on Moby Dick. Apparently, my deep, philosophical musings on Ahab’s obsessive quest were found to be “trite and unoriginal”. Oh dear! A wellearned, if stinging, instruction on how Br-bearing sedatives (no longer available due to their toxicity) entered the English lexicon to refer to boring and meaningless expressions, in large part due to Gelett Burgess’ 1906 essay, Are You a Bromide?

v17n6 From the Editors

By Jodi J. Rosso, John M. Eiler, Richard Harrison and Becky Lange |

There are many individuals and organizations who we want to recognize for their participation in and support of Elements in 2021.

Shine On You Crazy Diamonds

By Richard Harrison |

Despite many of us working in institutions that are signatories to the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA)—which promotes the idea that it is what you publish, not where you publish that really counts—how many of us still succumb to the reflex reaction of considering submitting to Science or Nature the moment we get an exciting result we think may be deemed “worthy” of a “glamour journal”? As long as we (myself included) continue to attach value to publishing in certain places, and we continue to use where something is published as proxy of its scientific merit, then we will continue to get the publishing system we deserve.

Reflecting on the Colonial Legacy of Geoscience in Africa

By Kathryn Goodenough and Keely Mills |

Although carbonatites are now known worldwide, much of the early work to identify them was done in Africa, particularly around Oldoinyo Lengai (Tanzania) led by the late John Barry Dawson (1932–2013). Barry was a professor at the University of Edinburgh (UK) when one of us (KG) was there during the 1990s doing a PhD on alkaline igneous rocks and carbonatites; his interest and enthusiasm for the subject was infectious. Barry’s initial work on Oldoinyo Lengai, and his recognition of it as a carbonatite volcano, was done when he was a geologist for the Geological Survey of Tanganyika, around the time of Tanzanian independence. This was a time when colonial attitudes still strongly governed the way geological work was done in Africa, and the early papers on carbonatites abound with names of former colonies such as Rhodesia, Nyasaland, and South-West Africa.

Remembrance of Carbonatites Past

By Alan R. Woolley |

The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘vector’ as a quantity having direction as well as magnitude, and ‘scalar’ as a quantity having only magnitude, not direction. Much geological research starts with fieldwork, manifestly a vector activity. In Figure 1A, the geologists are exploring the intersection of a complex, 3-D body, the layered Klokken syenite, a 4 × 3 km igneous intrusion in the Gardar alkaline province of SW Greenland, with a mountainous 3-D land-surface. I described the unusual layering in Elements v10n1 (Parsons 2014). The igneous rocks were emplaced 1,166.3 ± 1.2 million years ago, and the 650 m of 3-D topography, which reveals the inner workings of the magma chamber, was carved by the advance and retreat of the mighty Greenland ice sheet in the last few thousand years. Only the age (a U–Pb age from baddelyite, ZrO2) is a scalar quantity.