{"id":1539262,"date":"2022-07-05T08:05:38","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T12:05:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1539262"},"modified":"2022-07-05T08:05:46","modified_gmt":"2022-07-05T12:05:46","slug":"transform-our-view-of-the-world-scientists-find-origins-of-worlds-minerals-may-offer-path-to-find-extraterrestrial-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/transform-our-view-of-the-world-scientists-find-origins-of-worlds-minerals-may-offer-path-to-find-extraterrestrial-life\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Transform Our View Of The World\u2019: Scientists Find Origins Of World\u2019s Minerals, May Offer Path To Find Extraterrestrial Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">38<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ftransform-our-view-of-the-world-scientists-find-origins-of-worlds-minerals-may-offer-path-to-find-extraterrestrial-life%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1539262&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Scientists who found a new way \u00a0to ascertain the origins of Earth\u2019s minerals and their diverse formations may have offered a path to discover whether life exists elsewhere in the universe.<\/p>\n<p>Doctors Robert Hazen and Shaunna Morrison from the Carnegie Institute of Science authored a <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.geoscienceworld.org\/msa\/ammin\/article-abstract\/107\/7\/1262\/614721\/On-the-paragenetic-modes-of-minerals-A-mineral?redirectedFrom=fulltext\">study<\/a> offering a new approach to the origins of minerals. Prior approaches involved the documentation of different \u201cmineral species\u201d based on their combinations of chemical composition and crystal structure, but Hazen and the team studied how and when minerals appeared in the estimated 4.5 billion years of Earth history.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat mineral-forming environments occur on the Moon, Mars, and other terrestrial worlds? Enumerating paragenetic modes, and placing each mineral species into one or more of those categories, offers an opportunity to evaluate extraterrestrial mineralogy with a new perspective,\u201d the scientists suggested.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe remarkable work of Hazen and Morrison provides a potential way to predictably discover possible minerals in nature.\u00a0Minerals can be key to reconstructing the entire \u2018past life\u2019 and predicting the \u2018future life\u2019 of Earth, and understanding mineral evolution will offer a novel path for us to be able to explore deep space and search for extraterrestrial life and habitable planets in the future,\u201d stated Anhuai Lu, President of the International Mineralogical Association.<\/p>\n<p>The authors posited:<\/p>\n<p><em>A timeline for mineral-forming events suggests that much of Earth\u2019s mineral diversity was established within the first 250 million years. If life is rare in the universe, then this view of a mineralogically diverse early Earth provides many more plausible reactive pathways over a longer timespan than previous models. If, however, life is a cosmic imperative that emerges on any mineral- and water-rich world, then these findings support the hypothesis that life on Earth developed rapidly in the early stages of planetary evolution.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>By studying mineral genesis, the scientists increased the current number of the number of \u201cmineral kinds\u201d from the roughly 6,000 mineral species recognized by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) to more than 10,500.<\/p>\n<p>Hazen and colleagues looked at 5,659 recognized mineral species and found nine were generated instantly by lightning or meteor strikes or water-rock interactions or transformations at high pressures and temperature that took hundreds of millions of years.<\/p>\n<p>Among the study\u2019s findings: Water was involved in the formation of more than 80% of mineral species; life played a direct or indirect role in the formation of almost half of known mineral species; only 41 elements are essential constituents in over 42% of Earth\u2019s minerals; roughly \u00a0296 known minerals pre-date Earth, and \u00a0the oldest known minerals are tiny, durable zircon crystals, almost 4.4 billion years old.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe work also tells us something very profound about the role of biology,\u201d Hazen continued. \u201cOne third of Earth\u2019s minerals could not have formed without biology \u2013 shells and bones and teeth, or microbes, for example, or the vital indirect role of biology, such as by creating an oxygen-rich atmosphere that led to 2,000 minerals that wouldn\u2019t have formed otherwise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis work fundamentally changes our view of the diversity of minerals on the planet,\u201d Hazen asserted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFor example, more than 80% of Earth\u2019s minerals were mediated by water, which is, therefore, fundamentally important to mineral diversity on this planet.\u00a0By extension, this explains one of the key reasons why the Moon and Mercury and even Mars have far fewer mineral species than Earth,\u201d he noted as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eurekalert.org\/news-releases\/955683\">Eurekalert!<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEach mineral specimen has a history. Each tells a story. Each is a time capsule that reveals Earth\u2019s past as nothing else can,\u201d Hazen concluded.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Patrick Cordier of the Universit\u00e9 de Lille\/Institut Universitaire de France, stated:<\/p>\n<p><em>Hazen and colleagues have changed this way of considering minerals. In addition to chemical composition and physical properties, Hazen emphasizes their conditions and contexts of formation, and a new way of seeing minerals appears. Minerals become witnesses, markers of the long history of matter that takes shape in supernova explosions, gathers in planetary systems in formation and even, on a planet like Earth, accompanies the emergence and development of life.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Most scientists produce data, some are lucky enough to make discoveries, few are the ones who transform our view of the world. Hazen is one of them.<\/p>\n<p><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scientists who found a new way \u00a0to ascertain the origins of Earth\u2019s minerals and their diverse formations may have offered a path to discover whether life exists elsewhere in the universe. Doctors Robert Hazen and Shaunna Morrison from the Carnegie Institute of Science authored a study offering a new approach to the origins of minerals. &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":1539415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1539262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/60"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1539262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1539262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1539415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1539262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1539262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1539262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}