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Buseck Center for Meteorite Studies

World’s most abundant mineral finally named, thanks to meteorite research!

While researchers have long known that our planet’s most abundant solid phase is magnesium iron silicate (Mg,Fe)SiO3, since this material occurs deep below Earth’s surface, in the lower mantle, it has remained officially nameless until now (in order to receive a formal, recognized name, a mineral sample must be available for characterization).  In a new […]

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Graduate Student Spotlight: Daniel Dunlap

Daniel Dunlap received his B. S. from the University of Tennessee in 2013, and is currently enrolled in the second year of his Ph. D. at ASU.  As an undergraduate student, Daniel completed a research project with advisor Hap McSween, which involved the classification of the Tupelo meteorite, an EL6 meteorite from Mississippi.  EL6 chondrites […]

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Rancho Gomelia

Rancho Gomelia is an iron (IIIAB) meteorite found near Durango, Mexico, in 1975.  Two pieces, weighing a total of 15.65 kilograms, were recovered. This specimen of Rancho Gomelia measures approximately 8" in length, and displays an excellent Widmanstatten pattern (named for Count Alois von Beckh Widmanstatten, director of the Austrian Imperial Porcelain Works, in 1808), […]

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Arizona State University joins Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope project

In becoming a partner in the Murchison Widefield Array radio telescope, scientists from ASU’s School of Earth and Space Exploration will be using it to explore the beginning of the universe.  Arizona State University has joined with 14 other institutions in Australia, India, New Zealand, and the United States in a radio telescope project that […]

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