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Physical Chemistry

Worldwide Hunt For Missing Carbon Minerals Begins

Geology: The Carbon Mineral Challenge seeks help from scientists and public to learn more about carbon’s role on Earth

by Elizabeth K. Wilson
December 21, 2015

MINERAL SEARCH
This promotional video from the Deep Carbon Observatory explains the details of the Carbon Mineral Challenge.
Credit: Deep Carbon Observatory

Calling all rock hounds, the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO) wants you.

According to a new predictive model, more than 140 carbon mineral species on Earth have yet to be discovered, and DCO scientists have launched a citizen science project called the Carbon Mineral Challenge to find them.

MORE MINERALS
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Credit: Smithsonian Digital Studios
The carbonate mineral rhodochrosite (red), shown here attached to a piece of quartz, was discovered in Romanian silver mines and is now a source of manganese for stainless steel manufacturing.
A red crystal of the mineral rhodochrosite.
Credit: Smithsonian Digital Studios
The carbonate mineral rhodochrosite (red), shown here attached to a piece of quartz, was discovered in Romanian silver mines and is now a source of manganese for stainless steel manufacturing.

Over the next four years, teams around the world will study samples of carbon minerals submitted not only by academic mineralogists, but by amateur collectors and explorers. Got some unusual-looking minerals you’ve collected and stored in your garage? Head to the Carbon Mineral Challenge’s website to see whether they might be worth scrutinizing, says Robert Hazen at the Carnegie Institution’s Geophysical Laboratory and executive director of DCO.

As an institution devoted to exploring carbon’s role on a planetary scale, DCO has a particular interest in carbon minerals. Carbon plays a role in all of Earth’s biology and in fundamental processes from the atmosphere to Earth’s core. The discovery of new carbon mineral species could also add immeasurably to research on materials, energy, and climate. “The chemistry of carbon tells us a lot about the chemistry of Earth,” Hazen says.

PROSPECTING
Robert Hazen examines geology along the Chesapeake Bay.
Credit: Margaret Hazen
Hazen searches for minerals along the Chesapeake Bay.

Most of the mineral species we know of have been found serendipitously—a large number of those by amateur mineralogists.

Hazen and his colleagues recently developed a method that combines the distributions and locations of known minerals with statistical methods used in biology and lexicography to predict the number of unknown carbon minerals on Earth. Scientists have catalogued 5,027 mineral species, of which 406 contain carbon. The new analysis, currently in press in American Mineralogist, predicts that there are still about 145 carbon mineral species left for the finding.

Hazen and his colleagues announced the program, which is partly funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, on Dec. 17 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

International teams of mineralogists are ready to vet promising candidates, determining compositions with electron microprobe analysis and crystal structures via X-ray crystallography.

“It will be fascinating to see what new and exciting carbon minerals might be lurking in our Smithsonian collection drawers,” says Jeffrey E. Post, chair of the mineral sciences department and curator of the National Gem & Mineral Collection at the Smithsonian Institution. “And what impact they might have on understanding our planet.”

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