Researchers are developing a handheld instrument, much like a tricorder from the "Star Trek" television show, that will allow almost instant identification of minerals. The pocket-sized instrument ...

It’ll be a snap to identify gemstones once Robert Downs finishes his library of spectral fingerprints for all the Earth’s minerals. Downs is almost halfway there. So far, the associate professor of ...

Today's activities will focus on the physical properties of minerals and you will use physical properties to identify 11 common rock-forming and ore minerals. In class you will be using the mineral ...

Scientists have discovered that the mineral jarosite breaks down organic compounds when it is flash-heated, with implications for Mars research. Jarosite is an iron sulphate and it is one of several ...

Did you know that minerals are all around us? Minerals are the building blocks that make up rocks! They are the ores that we extract metals from to make electronics. They’re in the soils we need to ...

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www ...

Everyone switched off their headlamps and there we stood together in total darkness, inside the San Gabriel Mountains. Yes, inside. I had joined a local caving group in an attempt to understand more ...

Research confirms new minerals are capturing and storing carbon in a new paper by University of Alberta geologists and their collaborators. The minerals, members of the hydrotalcite group, are the ...

When news broke late last month that an unidentified bright blue mineral had been found in Adventure Mining Company’s historic Upper Peninsula copper mine, many people made speculations on social ...