How can life emerge in a world of minerals?

The European Research Council (ERC) has awarded an ERC Synergy Grant to the project “The role of silica at the dawn of life on our planet” (PROTOS)

30-Oct-2023 - How did our planet become habitable? The first five hundred million years of planet Earth – the so-called Hadean – have been shrouded in mystery so far because there are no remains of rocks from those times. The discovery that the planet already had water then has opened up new perspectives on a ...

One more clue to the Moon’s origin

Researchers from ETH Zurich discover the first definitive proof that the Moon inherited indigenous noble gases from the Earth’s mantle

18-Aug-2022 - The discovery represents a significant piece of the puzzle towards understanding how the Moon and, potentially, the Earth and other celestial bodies were formed. Humankind has maintained an enduring fascination with the Moon. It was not until Galileo’s time, however, that scientists really began ...

High-tech Metals Germanium and Gallium from the Deep Sea?

Research on the Raw Materials Dilemma

12-May-2022 - Germanium and gallium are two metals that are of great importance for modern high technologies. Both are important raw materials for the semiconductor industry, for fiber optic cables and for photovoltaics. They are thus essential components for shaping electromobility and the energy transition. ...

Geochemists measure new composition of Earth’s mantle

19-Sep-2019 - What is the chemical composition of the Earth’s interior? Because it is impossible to drill more than about ten kilometres deep into the Earth, volcanic rocks formed by melting Earth’s deep interior often provide such information. Geochemists at the Universities of Münster (Germany) and Amsterdam ...

Rust never sleeps

Chinks in iron crystals that can 'heal'

06-Feb-2019 - Like iron flowing through the blood stream, iron minerals course through the ground. These minerals are used to make steel and other metal alloys used in everything from cell phone components and cars to buildings, industrial equipment and infrastructure. Unfortunately, when exposed to oxygen and ...

Widespread uranium contamination found in India's groundwater

11-Jun-2018 - A new Duke University-led study has found widespread uranium contamination in groundwater from aquifers in 16 Indian states. The main source of the uranium contamination is natural, but human factors such as groundwater-table decline and nitrate pollution may be exacerbating the problem. Several ...

Heavy-petroleum fuels raising vanadium emissions

19-Dec-2017 - Human emissions of the potentially harmful trace metal vanadium into Earth's atmosphere have spiked sharply since the start of the 21st century due in large part to industry's growing use of heavy oils, tar sands, bitumen and petroleum coke for energy, a new Duke University study finds. "Human ...

Huge carbon sink in soil minerals

09-Nov-2017 - A Washington State University researcher has discovered that vast amounts of carbon can be stored by soil minerals more than a foot below the surface. The finding could help offset the rising greenhouse-gas emissions helping warm the Earth's climate. Marc Kramer, an assistant professor of ...

Searching for answers on the sea floor

How abiotic organic molecules are formed

14-Jun-2017 - The sea floor may look barren, but Qi Fu, an experimental geochemist at the University of Houston, says there are places where it is teeming with life. Hydrothermal vents, fissures on the sea bottom which release fluids heated by volcanic rocks, are particularly rich, but science can't yet ...

New insights about our Earth’s lower mantle

Scientists X-ray the most abundant mineral of Earth

21-Jul-2016 - Using DESY's bright X-ray light source PETRA III, a team of scientists has discovered unexpected facts about the most abundant mineral on Earth. The mineral bridgmanite makes up roughly one third of Earth’s entire volume and is the major component of Earth’s lower mantle. Thus, its physical ...