Mineral structures
Posted on 23/04/2014
Contributed by
Helen Maynard-Casely
Helen Maynard-Casely
What is our planet made out of? (6) Magnesiowüstite
What does it look like?
What is it?
Looking at yesterday's structure silicate perovskite, which has a lot of silicon, you'll realise that on transforming from ringwoodite to perovskite (as happens at about 650 km under out feet) then you'll have a lot of iron, magnesium and oxygen left over. What happens to these elements is that they form into the mineral Magnesiowüstite. Again it's a familiar structure, the rock salt structure, that these elements take up.
Where did the structure come from?
The structure of Magnesiowüstite, from a crystal at nearly 23 GPa, is #9006103 in the Crystallography Open Database.
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