Kermanshah ophiolite is an extremely crushed ophiolitic complex in which a complete ophiolitic sequence is not observed. Gabbros, deloritc dikes and mostly serpentinized peridotites are among the most important constituents of these ophiolitic set. Pridotites existing in the study area are of metamorphosized types that have been severely affected by the hydrothermal solutions due to their extre...

Some structural analogies found in tsumebite, vauquelinite, forns.cite, and brackebuschite make it possible to place these secondary lead minerMs in the s~me series with general formula Pb~MeII(Z)(XQ)(Y04), where MelI is a bivalent cation as Cu 2+ or Mn 2+, Z is the hydroxyl group or the w~ter molecule, X is S, Cr, or V, ~nd Y is P, As, or V. Some crystallochemical considerations are developed ...

Open your eyes to Africa. It is big, complex and confounding,” says the British Medical Journal of October 1, 2005.1 It has some of world’s richest natural resources in minerals and oil. Yet 34 of the world’s 41 indebted poor countries are in Africa, and only 37% of Africa’s children attend secondary school. Africa, with one sixth of the world’s population, accounts for one fiftieth of the glob...

We measured the abundances of Sr and rare earth elements (REEs) in the matrices of five CV3 carbonaceous chondrites: Meteorite Hills (MET) 00430, MET 01070, La Paz ice field (LAP) 02206, Asuka (A) 881317 and Roberts Massif (RBT) 04143. In the MET 00430 and MET 01074 matrices, the Sr/CI and light REE (LREE, La–Nd)/CI ratios positively correlate with the amounts of Ca-rich secondary minerals, whi...

Many of the minerals observed or inferred to occur in the sediments and sedimentary rocks of Mars, from a variety of Mars-mission spacecraft data, also occur in Martian meteorites. Even Martian meteorites recovered after some exposure to terrestrial weathering can preserve preterrestrial evaporite minerals and useful information about aqueous alteration on Mars, but the textures and textural co...

The study of uranium-series (U-series) isotopes in soil and sediment materials has been proposed to quantify rates and timescales of soil production and sediment transport. Previous works have studied bulk soil or sediment material, which is a complex assemblage of primary and secondary minerals and organic compounds. However, the approach relies on the fractionation between U-series isotopes i...

Minerals, as we know them, are locked in the crust of the earth. As land dwellers, our main link with minerals is through a diet of plants, which are able to extract and assimilate metallic minerals from the soil as they grow. Our secondary link is from meats of animals that eat plants. Minerals are extremely important for our well-being, yet they have always been taken for granted, and few of ...