From: Robert Hazen <rhazen@ciw.edu> Sent: Friday, March 25, 2016 15:11 To: Dimitri Sverjensky; Jihua Hao; Paul Falkowski; Andrew Knoll; Peter Fox; Michael Meyer; Mark Ghiorso; Elisha K. Moore; Sophie Kolankowski; Marshall X Ma Subject: Fwd: Appalachian State notes Attachments: num ima minerals-vs-num elements -mindat-raw-20160115.docx Flag Status: Flagged Dear Colleagues, I wanted to key you into an email conversation related to mining big mineral data resources. Some of us have been thinking about reasons for observed mineral diversity. One obvious factor is the geochemical complexity of a locality. The following discussion and attach graph are self- explanatory. Any thoughts? Bob ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Robert Hazen <rhazen@ciw.edu> Date: Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 3:06 PM Subject: Re: Appalachian State notes To: Daniel Hummer <dhummer@carnegiescience.edu> Cc: "Golden, Joshua J - (jgolden)" <jgolden@email.arizona.edu>, "Downs, Robert T - (rdowns)" <rdowns@email.arizona.edu>, Grethe Hystad <Grethe.Hystad@purduecal.edu>, Edward Grew <esgrew@maine.edu>, Chao Liu <cliu@carnegiescience.edu>, "Morrison, Shaunna - (shaunnamm)" <shaunnamm@email.arizona.edu> Hi All, First, thank you Joshua! You have become a real master in mining these data resources. Yes, there is definitely something here of interest--an insight into origins of mineral diversity as a function of element diversity. Just to amplify a bit, there are about 12 ur-minerals using 10 essential elements; 60 chondrite minerals using 20 elements; 250 meteorite minerals with (I think) about 35 elements; and today 5100 minerals with 72 elements. The data Josh compiled on individual localities seem to have a similar trend. Can we say something similar about the Moon and Mars? Could this be a way to predict how many minerals one might find on another world--essentially a function of geochemical differentiation? And regarding individual mineral localities, at the lower end of species diversity (left-hand limits) are a bunch of places in mindat where there are only a few obvious minerals reported. These localities really are incomplete and can't tell us much. On the other hand, the right-hand limit seems to be telling us something significant, and the curve definitely shows the predicted nonlinear increase in numbers of species versus numbers of essential elements. There is some kind of combinatorial effect. So, can we come up with a rational way to identify the more thoroughly studied localities? And what is the mathematical form of the right-limit curve? And is there a theoretical reason for the curve? Will be thinking about these matters. Let me know what you think. Best, Bob On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 2:44 PM, Daniel Hummer <dhummer@carnegiescience.edu> wrote: That graph IS really interesting.... there seems to be a very well defined upper and lower envelope. I wonder if there's a theoretical or statistical reason for that. Dan Daniel R Hummer Postdoctoral Scholar, Mineralogy and Crystallography Geophysical Laboratory Carnegie Institution of Washington Phone: (814) 321-8859 Fax: (202) 478-8901 On 3/25/16 2:21 PM, Golden, Joshua J - (jgolden) wrote: Dear all, I have attached a scatter plot of number of minerals vs number of elements from the mindat dataset of 137824 localities. This plot is from the original mindat export file from 20160115. This number of localities differs slightly than what is currently on the database (135769) due to the fact that on the database we have removed "duplicate" mineral entries from localities that contain a mineral at both the bottom level and one of the parents. I know this is not exactly what we want, but is the first order of the data. The graph looks very interesting. Best regards, Josh From: Robert Hazen <rhazen@ciw.edu> Sent: Thursday, March 24, 2016 6:23 PM To: Downs, Robert T - (rdowns); Golden, Joshua J - (jgolden); Grethe Hystad; Edward Grew; Daniel Hummer; Chao Liu; Morrison, Shaunna - (shaunnamm) Subject: Appalachian State notes Dear Colleagues, I'm just back from Appalachian State, where I gave 2 seminars, 1 public lecture, and spent many hours meeting with students and faculty, mostly on mineral evolution/ecology themes. Very nice reception from faculty and students; also lots of enthusiasm for changing the way mineralogy is taught. Two things of interest to our team. First, their small geology teaching museum recently received a nice donation of ~200 fine mineral specimens. The new displays were unveiled as part of my visit and were organized around mineral evolution (photos attached). The displays are small but very effective and I was quite touched at their efforts and the little ceremony to dedicate it. Second, after my mineral ecology seminar (remarkably well-attended geology event, with 150 people jammed into a room that seated ~130), an ecologist (Bob Creed) came up and discussed aspects of island biogeography in more detail. Turns out it’s not a strictly log-log relationship between number of species and island area, because for larger islands you get coupling effects that lead to relatively more species. While I don’t see a direct correlation to mineral diversity, it did trigger an idea. What is the relationship between the number of mineral-forming elements (N) at a locality and the number of observed species (S) at that locality (assuming by locality we mean a well-defined mineral-forming district)? In a strictly equilibrium world the answer is Gibbs’ phase rule: S ? N + 2. Thus, a granite with Si, Al, Na, K, Fe, Mg, Ca, Ti, Zr, H, and F typically will have ten different minerals [e.g., quartz, 3 feldspars (including perthitic exsolution), 2 micas, magnetite, sphene, zircon, fluorite]. But many localities have multiple pulses of mineralization, secondary alteration and weathering, and metastable persistence of phases. So I’m guessing that if we plot N versus S for well-researched localities (though I’m not sure how one determines which mineralized districts are “well-researched”), we’ll find a distinctly non-linear trend, with far more minerals occurring at localities with lots of mineral-forming elements. This idea follows from the combinatorial richness of chemistry and the metastability of many mineral phases. I propose that we start such an effort by tabulating those localities/districts in mindat that have the greatest numbers of essential elements and then list the numbers of known species from those localities. My guess is that the top 1000 localities in terms of numbers of essential elements will also tend to be well researched in terms of their minerals. I realize that mindat.org isn't flawless in its lists of minerals, but perhaps we can target those localities that have reliable monographic treatment of their mineralogies. Then we can see if there’s any trend at all by plotting N versus S for those localities/districts. This idea isn’t a high priority, but it would be an interesting additional factor in trying to understand diversity-distribution relationships. If there's a relatively easy way to mine mindat then I'd suggest we do a trial plot and see if there's an interesting trend. Be well; hope to see most of you in the next week. Bob -- Robert M. Hazen Senior Staff Scientist, Geophysical Laboratory Executive Director, Deep Carbon Observatory 5251 Broad Branch Road NW Washington, DC 20015 phone: 202-478-8962 e-mail: rhazen@ciw.edu Personal web site: http://hazen.gl.ciw.edu DCO website: deepcarbon.net Keck Deep-Time Project website: http://dtdi.carnegiescience.edu