Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Qingsongite

A newly christened mineral has an atomic structure that’s similar to diamond and nearly as hard. Qingsongite was first created in the laboratory in 1957, and geologists first found natural qingsongite, which is a cubic boron nitride, in chromium-rich rocks in Tibet in 2009. The mineral is named after deceased Chinese geologist Qingsong Fang, who discovered diamond in similar Tibetan rocks in the late 1970s.
From Science News.

The name was officially assigned in August, 2013.

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