Abstract: The mineralogy of our planet is a fingerprint of history—a durable archive of the physical and chemical conditions that have evolved over 4.5 billion years. Minerals record temperatures and pressures, redox states and fluid compositions, preserving evidence that spans the earliest violent collisions of solar-system formation to human activities that occurred only yesterday. Yet Earth’s mineral story reaches far deeper in time, extending back to the very origins of the elements themselves.
This talk traces mineral evolution from the formation of the most rudimentary elements in the first few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, through the birth of the first stars and the onset of stellar nucleosynthesis, to the creation of the heaviest elements in kilonova explosions. These elements were dispersed into interstellar gas clouds, recycled through multiple generations of stars, and ultimately assembled into planets. The first minerals to form in the universe—diamond and graphite—were forged under extreme conditions and endlessly recycled, providing the elemental backbone for life. Today, roughly 6,000 mineral species are known on Earth; each one offers a distinct window into our cosmic history.
Cosmic mineralogy: from diamonds to quasicrystals
Details
Speaker Name/Affiliation
Terry Wallace / Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
When
-
Seminar Type
Location (Room)
JILA Auditorium
Event Details & Abstracts
The Physics Frontiers Centers (PFC) program supports university-based centers and institutes where the collective efforts of a larger group of individuals can enable transformational advances in the most promising research areas. The program is designed to foster major breakthroughs at the intellectual frontiers of physics by providing needed resources such as combinations of talents, skills, disciplines, and/or specialized infrastructure, not usually available to individual investigators or small groups, in an environment in which the collective efforts of the larger group can be shown to be seminal to promoting significant progress in the science and the education of students. PFCs also include creative, substantive activities aimed at enhancing education, broadening participation of traditionally underrepresented groups, and outreach to the scientific community and general public.