Geology professor’s study of olivine provides new data set for understanding plate tectonics
Plate tectonics, the idea that the surface of the Earth is made up of plates that move apart and come back together, has been used to explain the locations of volcanoes and earthquakes since the 1960s. (more…)
Chondrules may have formed from high-pressure collisions in early solar system
At issue is how numerous small, glassy spherules had become embedded within specimens of the largest class of meteorites—the chondrites. British mineralogist Henry Sorby first described these spherules, called chondrules, in 1877. Sorby suggested that they might be “droplets of fiery rain” which somehow condensed out of the cloud of gas and dust that formed the solar system 4.5 billion years ago. (more…)
