What is a mineral?

Mineral Detective Part 2

We're moving beyond basic mineral identification, which you can do with a simple geology kit. Instead, we're diving into the quantitative methods we use to study minerals. This involves using specialized instruments in our lab, though there are many other tools out there. We're focusing on the instruments we're most familiar with since we have a good selection right here in the lab.

The Mineral Detective — part 1

This podcast episode introduces the hosts, Aaron Celestian, the curator, and Kriss Leftwich, the collections manager, of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County’s mineral sciences department. They discuss their current research into unusual growths on saber-toothed cat fossils and then explore various properties of minerals, such as color, luster, hardness, and reactivity, explaining how these properties are used for identification, analysis, and applications in fields like art and archaeology. The episode also features a discussion of the unique properties of minerals and rocks and how humans take advantage of them. Finally, they preview future episodes focused on laboratory tools and a deeper exploration of mineral colors.

What is a mineral?

Yes, it’s controversial and not just because scientists like to argue. The cover image is a kidney stone, which is both a mineral and not a mineral—it depends on who you ask. We will talk you through what that means and give tons of examples.

The Intro

New format, new content, new fun.

Diamond: origin, color, history, and other stories

Most of the big diamonds form deep in the Earth, between 410km and 660km (250 to 400 miles deep), and nearly all of them are older than 1 billion years.  This is one reason why they are so interesting, because the mineral inclusions stuck inside these are essentially windows into Earth's geologic past and also a glance of what the deep Earth chemistry is like.  Diamonds are the only way we can get samples of these inaccessible locations, but are critical for our understanding of Earth processes.  Diamond research as been use to as evidence of the onset of plate tectonics, crustal recycling, as geobarometers and geothermometers, and as a source to discover new minerals that only grow in these parts of the Earth.