CARBON – BEAUTIFUL, ESSENTIAL, DEADLY
By Jon Blundy | December, 2019
The unique physical chemistry of carbon confers an extraordinary ability to form molecules that are variously beautiful (think diamond), essential (think living cells), and toxic (think greenhouse gas). Nowhere is this split personality more evident than in the enigmatic igneous clan of kimberlites, the topic for this issue of Elements. No one who has set eyes on a cut diamond, especially the delicate pink stones from soon-to-close Argyle Mine in Western Australia (see photo to the right), can fail to be awestruck at Nature’s capacity for beauty. Kimberlite magmas that bring diamonds to the surface are carbon fuelled, whether by methane through a complex series of redox melting reactions (see Foley et al. 2019 this issue p. 393), or by carbon dioxide exsolving from kimberlite melt at sub-crustal depths and propelling it explosively to the surface (see Russell et al. 2019 this issue p. 405).
CELEBRATION OF THE PERIODIC TABLE
By Nancy Ross | October, 2019
The periodic table of chemical elements is one of the most significant achievements in science because it arranges the 118 known elements in a deceptively simple pattern that reveals their properties. So how did this “Rosetta Stone of Nature” originate? Most likely, you will answer Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian chemist who in 1869 published a version of the periodic table that we recognize today. His table expresses the periodic law: elements arranged according to the size of their atomic weights show periodic properties. To celebrate the 150th-anniversary of this great achievement, the United Nations and UNESCO declared 2019 to be the International Year of the Periodic Table of Elements.
WEATHERING: EARTH’S INEXORABLE MILLSTONE
By John M. Eiler | August, 2019
Mere centuries from now, almost every physical object you’ve bought or wrought will have disappeared from the face of the Earth. Nature’s forces will conspire to erase your archeological record. Unless you live in a stone manor, the foundations of your home will gradually crumble due to carbonic acid seeping into hairline cracks. Soil will migrate and turn over, shifting and consuming whatever objetsd’ art now grace your yard. Oxidation and sunlight will yellow and crack exposed plastic and paper. And everywhere, always, a teeming horde of plant roots, invertebrates, moles, and their microbial friends and relations will disaggregate and eat whatever they can. In the blink of a geological eye, almost your entire archaeological record will very likely be buried, broken down, and swept away.
HAIL HEPHAESTUS, INTERDISCIPLINARY DEITY!
By Jon Blundy | June, 2019
The Aegean region of the Eastern Mediterranean can claim, with good reason, to be a cradle of modern civilisation and scholarship. As we learn in this issue of Elements, the Aegean is also home to some extraordinary geology, including Santorini Volcano whose Late Bronze Age eruption presaged (but did not actually cause, we learn on p. 185) the demise of the mighty Minoan dynasty on Crete. The so called Minoan eruption was one of many eruptions from Aegean volcanoes that took place under the watchful eye of the Ancient Greek gods, not least Hephaestus, god of fire and son of Zeus.
DOES EARTH STILL OFFER DISCOVERIES?
By Friedhelm von Blanckenburg | April, 2019
Imagine a geoscientist who begins his career as a mine surveyor but who quickly realizes that this was too small a field for him. So, he decides to take field trips, which last many years, to remote parts of the Earth. What our geoscientist discovers includes nothing less than the interactions between topography and climate, the alignment of volcanoes along zones of earthquake activity and at great depth, and three-quarters of all known plant species. Returning home, our geoscientist does not rest. Instead, he lets the world know of his spectacular discoveries. He becomes a prolific writer who publishes an immense number of articles and books, all the while discussing the implications of his findings in a dozen or more detailed letters a day with colleagues around the world.
MINERALOGICAL REVELATIONS FROM SPACE ODYSSEYS
By Nancy L. Ross | February, 2019
Sir Arthur C. Clarke (1917– 2008), perhaps best known for the 1968 book and film 2001: A Space Odyssey, once stated that “The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.” As you enjoy this issue of Elements on planet Mercury, think about the remarkable achievement of sending a spacecraft to Mercury, the closest planet to the Sun.