Latest Petrology Stories
Explor Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE: EXS) is pleased to announce the acquisition of 12 mineral units (2) additional mineral claims to the 62 mineral units already owned (total units 74) and situated in Carnegie Township in the Porcupine mining division, district of Cochrane, province of Ontario. Explor Resources inc., will pay $8,000 and issue 100,000 common shares for an Option to acquire 100% interest in the 12 units. The Optionee has retained a 2.0% NSR in the property but the Company has...
A new technique using X-rays has enabled scientists to play 'detective' and solve the debate about the origins of a three billion year old rock fragment.In the study, published today in the journal Nature, a scientist describes the new technique and shows how it can be used to analyze tiny samples of molten rock called magma, yielding important clues about the Earth's early history.Working in conjunction with Australian and US scientists, an Imperial College London researcher analyzed a magma...
STEWART, BC, Oct. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Mountain Boy Minerals Ltd and Pinnacle Mines Ltd announce that further assays have been received from the 2008 drill program on the Silver Coin project. A total of approximately 12,600 meters of drilling was completed in 79 holes on the Kansas and Big Missouri claims. Drilling tested in areas with little or no drilling in order to provide data for an updated resource calculation. Two different zones were tested with the drilling including the BM...
As the world looks for more energy, the oil industry will need more refined tools for discoveries in places where searches have never before taken place, geologists say.One such tool is a new sediment curve (which shows where sediment-on-the-move is deposited), derived from sediments of the Paleozoic Era 542 to 251 million years ago, scientists report in this week's issue of the journal Science. The sediment curve covers the entire Paleozoic Era."The new Paleozoic sea-level sediment...
A strip of bedrock located in the eastern area of Canada's Hudson Bay was discovered to have the oldest rocks on Earth, said scientists on Thursday. The rocks were formed about 4.28 billion years ago, shortly after the planet was created. It might even contain evidence of movement by ancient creatures.If these findings are indeed correct, this would definitely be the first proof of life on Earth. However, co-author of the article, Don Francis, warned that this had not been verified as of...
Castle Resources Inc. (TSX VENTURE: CRI) ("Castle" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update to investors about its San Ramon silver project in Mexico. In 2006, Castle acquired the San Ramon project within Mexico's Zacatecas Silver District. The project is comprised of eight concessions totaling 312.2 ha., approximately five kilometres northeast of the city of Zacatecas. The property is adjacent to Capstone Mining Corporation's recently commissioned Cozamin Mine. Following the...
By Zhu, Wenbin Zhang, Zhiyong; Shu, Liangshu; Lu, Huafu; Su, Jinbao; Yang, Wei Mafic dykes are observed in the Korla region along the northern Tarim Block, NW China. Our sensitive high-resolution ion microprobe U-Pb zircon ages, the first determined for these dykes, indicate that the mafic dykes were mainly formed at 650-630 Ma, and thus document the youngest known igneous activity associated with rifting in the Tarim Block during the Neoproterozoic. Combined with previous geochronological...
Materials deep inside Earth have unexpected atomic properties that might force earth scientists to revise their models of Earth's internal processes, a team of researchers has discovered.The researchers recreated in the lab the materials, crushing pressures and infernal temperatures they believe exist in the lowermost mantle, nearly 2,900 kilometers (1,800 miles) below Earth's surface. They report in the journal Nature Geoscience the materials exhibit rare and unexpected atomic properties...
Diamonds from Brazil have provided the answers to a question that Earth scientists have been trying to understand for many years: how is oceanic crust that has been subducted deep into the Earth recycled back into volcanic rocks? A team of researchers, led by the University of Bristol, working alongside colleagues at the STFC Daresbury Laboratory, have gained a deeper insight into how the Earth recycles itself in the deep earth tectonic cycle way beyond the depths that can be accessed by...
By Steinhoefel, Grit Hegner, Ernst; Oliver, Grahame J H Abstract: Major- and trace-element data and Nd isotope compositions for granitoid samples from the Grampian Highlands in Scotland show a systematic evolution in the composition of their sources in the course of the Caledonian Orogeny. Granitoids of 511- 451 Ma, related to the collision of the Midland Valley island arc with the Grampian terrane, show S-type affinity and fractionated REE patterns with minor Eu anomalies and low initial...
Latest Petrology Reference Libraries
Biotite is a common phyllosilicate mineral that contains potassium, magnesium, iron and aluminium. It is sometimes called "iron mica" and is found in granitic rocks, gneisses, and schists. Like other mica minerals, biotite has a highly perfect basal cleavage, its flexible sheets easily flaking off. It has a hardness of 2.5 - 3, a specific gravity of 2.7 - 3.1, is colored greenish to brown or black, and can be transparent to opaque. Biotite is occasionally found in large sheets, especially in...
Chert is a fine-grained silica-rich cryptocrystalline sedimentary rock that may contain small fossils. It varies greatly in color from white to black, but most often manifests as gray, brown, grayish brown and light green to rusty red; its color is an expression of trace elements present in the rock, and both red and green are most often related to traces of iron (in its oxidized and reduced forms respectively). It outcrops as nodules in limestone, chalk, and dolostone formations as a...
Chromite, iron magnesium chromium oxide: (Fe,Mg)Cr2O4, is an oxide mineral belonging to the spinel group. Magnesium is always present in variable amounts, also aluminium and iron substitute for chromium. Chromite is found in peridotite and other layered ultramafic intrusive rocks and also found in metamorphic rocks such as serpentinites. Ore deposites of chromite form as early magmatic differentiates. It is commonly associated with olivine, magnetite, serpentine, and corundum. Chromite is...
In geology, a conglomerate is a rock consisting of other stones that have been cemented together. Conglomerates are sedimentary rocks consisting of subangular clasts and are thus differentiated from breccias, which consist of angular clasts. Both conglomerates and breccias are characterized by clasts larger than sand (>2 mm). There are two varieties of conglomerate, defined by texture: paraconglomerates and orthoconglomerates. Paraconglomerates are one of two varieties of conglomerate...
Diorite is a grey to dark grey intermediate intrusive igneous rock composed principally of plagioclase feldspar (typically andesine), hornblende, and/or pyroxene. Varieties deficient in hornblende and other dark minerals are called leucodiorite. It is often described as "salt and pepper" when composed largely of light-colored minerals randomly interspersed with dark minerals. When olivine and more iron-rich augite are present, the rock grades into ferrodiorite, which is transitional to...
