Questions tagged [geochemistry]
The science that uses the tools and principles of chemistry to explain the mechanisms behind major geological systems.
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Where does molecular hydrogen in the atmosphere come from?
This figure from Wikipedia's Atmosphere of Earth shows a hydrogen fraction of 0.000055 percent by volume.
Question: Where does molecular hydrogen in the atmosphere come from?
Does this come directly ...
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Is weathering of rock a primary means of $\text{CO}_2$ scrubbing on primordial Earth?
I read somewhere that the reason Venus has a runaway greenhouse effect and Earth doesn't is because Venus failed to develop tectonic plates and instead formed a full tectonic plate enveloping the ...
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Does Xenon really covalently bond to oxygen within quartz?
Wikipedia's Xenon; occurrence and production says
Within the Solar System, the nucleon fraction of xenon is $1.56 \times 10^{-8}$, for an abundance of approximately one part in 630 thousand of the ...
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Would oceans regenerate if removed?
On Earth, there is enough Hydrogen and Oxygen to make 13,88 million km$^3$ of water (calculation below). However, oceans contain only a tenth of that.
Clearly, most of the hydrogen must be stored in ...
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why igneous phosphate rocks contain less uranium than sedimentary rocks?
Sedimentary rock phosphates contain much higher concentrations of potentially hazardous elements (As, Cd, Cr,Pb, Se and U)than igneous rock phosphates. Why?
Is it because U concentration in magmatic ...
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Formation of Hematite on Mars via Perchlorates as an Oxidizer
Hematite on Mars is generally thought to have formed either in pools of water or from volcanic activity.
A comment to the answer to the question: How do hematite and magnetite form? states that ...
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1answer
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If the study of “minerals” is covered by inorganic chemistry
I am wondering what field studies "minerals", such as the minerals in Wikipedia's list. I keep thinking that perhaps it would be covered in inorganic chemistry (list of inorganic compounds wiki), but ...
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Is it possible to form a diamond-sapphire hybrid?
I've been looking into diamonds recently and was made aware of diamond hybrids where diamond is grown on either a seed diamond or cubic zirconia. I was wondering if it would be possible to do ...
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Historically, how did the total amount of salt / NaCl on Earth develop?
After reading this question about the origin of NaCl on Earth, I'm wondering: How did the amount of NaCl develop historically? Is it a more or less linear growth until today? Was it such a linear ...
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1answer
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The magnetite is in which type of magma
In which type of magma can I find magnetite? Peraluminous or peralkaline? I've been looking and the peraluminous magma have a lot of oxides so I thought it would be reduced magma so it would have ...
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How does chalcedony containing quarts and mogánite form?
I just learned that the cryptocrystalline form of silica, chalcedony, usually contains 1-20% of the monoclinic $\ce{SiO_2}$ mineral mogánite as well as the much more common hexagonal quartz. With time ...
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Do living things have a magnetic field capable of any level of solar protection?
I understand how anything with an electrical current have a magnetic field including living things. Would a densely populated rain forest or jungle have enough combined magnetic field among the living ...
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What exactly are enantiotropic and monotropic polymorphic transitions?
Recently, I've been studying the subject of polymorphism and met two important concepts, the monotropic and enantiotropic polymorphic transition types. However, I can't really seem to grasp the ...
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What other graphical methods can be used to represent weathering?
Context:
For one of my reports I have taken samples of a rock from an adjacent creek. I have done XRD analysis to get compositions of calcium, potassium and aluminium.
My question:
I know about ...
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Employment of Volcanologists and Petrologists
What industries or government departments hire volcanologists and igneous petrologists/geochemists in the United States?
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Melting point of minerals
Looking at this website, I can see the melting point of the following minerals: http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/Geophys/meltrock.html
Apparently at a temperature of 1200 °C, all the ...
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What does 5,000,000 tonnes of CO2 look like?
Reading a news article Probe after Gorgon releases millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas, I am confused. CO2 is a gas, right? Gases are not very dense, right? So what does 5MT of the stuff look like?...
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Carbon's role in ocean acidification
This might seem like a basic question, but I'm a little confused about the effects on ocean acidification of different carbon compounds.
I have heard that increased levels of carbon dioxide in the ...
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131 views
What are the cubic formations found inside Larimar gemstones?
I recently noticed what appears to be common cubic formations just beneath the surface of Pectolite (Larimar) gemstones. They quite resemble transparent sugar sprinkles. Each formation isn't perfectly ...
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Sulfate reduction
I read a document in which the authors stated "Sulfate and sulfide ( bisulfide and dihydrogen sulfide) both exist within a system just in varying proportions, and aqueous speciation is dependent on Eh/...
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170 views
Please help in understanding redox buffers
I'm trying to gain a firmer conceptual understanding of how redox buffers work in petrology, specifically how oxygen fugacity influences mineral crystallization.
While I understand the mathematical ...
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Reason for higher content of Iodine and Copper than Iron in Seawater?
Does mineral weight contribute to the prevalence of minerals in seawater?
Why is there five times more copper in seawater than Iron?
Why is there 4000 times more strontium in seawather than Iron, ...
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2answers
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Iron-nickel phase in pallasite meteorites
I have recently been learning and researching about meteorite types and classification. Pallasites are mainly composed of a 'solid-solution' of olivine crystals and an iron-nickel alloy. My question ...
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Is the iron on Earth's crust a leftover of the Iron catastrophe, or it was brought back by volcanoes?
When pondering the hypothesis of the Iron catastrophe, that seem to be widely accepted nowadays. It surprises me that currently the crust still contain a significant amount of Iron (5.6% in weight).
...
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108 views
Difference between pyrite oxidation and dissolution
I've seen papers use oxidation and dissolution of pyrite. Are these two processes the same? I was always under the impression that pyrite does not dissolve easily. What is the difference between ...
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Chloride and evaporation
I have a layered aquifer with water that contains high concentrations of calcium and sulfate (~400 mg/L Ca2+, ~1300 mg/L SO42-), at 50 cm below ground surface (bgs), 250 cm bgs and 300 cm bgs. The ...
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Formation of dolomite
What are the kinetic barriers to dolomite precipitation? Does it precipitate out in solution as quickly as Calcite does?
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What is the difference between N-MORB, E-MORB and OIB?
What are the differences between N-MORB, E-MORB and OIB with regards to:
Tectonic setting
Geochemical features
There are several types of basalts, but I can't find a clearly explained article.
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Pyrite oxidation
How much pyrite has to be oxidized to produce a sulfate concentration of 15 mM?
If the solution initially has a pH of 8, roughly what would the pH drop to if there is no buffering of acidity?
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What controls the tendency of trace elements in different particle size fractions?
Trace element atmospheric particles are introduced from different sources, with both anthropogenic and natural origins.
By analyzing the concentration levels of 18 elements in samples of $PM_{2.5}$ ...
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1answer
322 views
Saturation Index clarification
I have a problem with my project and I was hoping I would find some clarification.
I did some modeling with phreeqc to calculate saturation indices and found that calcite was saturated in an ...
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2answers
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Sulfate salts of magnesium and sodium
What concentrations of magnesium, sodium and sulfate are needed to precipitate solid MgSO4 and Na2SO4 (let's say evaporation is occurring in a system) I'm assuming probably really high because they ...
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136 views
What controls the acidity of the ocean?
I have learned that:
coral reefs are made up mostly of calcium carbonate
coral reefs are mainly distributed in the tropical zone
The calcium carbonate will be decomposed in the reaction as ...
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Mass balance for calculating mantle composition
I've seen some problem sets given without answers / solutions regarding how to calculate the composition of the mantle given solar composition (and assuming the same would apply to the Earth). For ...
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Effect of reducing conditions on melting point
I've been reading a paper(*) looking at the deep carbon cycle and it mentions a key process that the authors refer to as "redox melting". According to the paper, reducing conditions increase the ...
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Is this why oceans are salty?
From noaa.gov's Ocean facts:
Salt in the ocean comes from rocks on land.
The rain that falls on the land contains some dissolved carbon dioxide from the surrounding air. This causes the ...
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Analyzing composition of a mineral using SEM
If I have a mineral in which I did a SEM analysis on and got the data (elements and their wt% with Std. Dev., MDL, atomic % oxide % and k ratio) how would I go about quantifying the sample's ...
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Dolomite and calcite precipitation
In an engineered wetland, there is groundwater flow from an aquifer with a chemical composition that is rich in magnesium, calcium and sulfate. We are finding that the aquifer is consistently ...
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Limitations on mineral precipitation from solution
If the solubility constant for a mineral is exceeded and, thermodynamically, a mineral is favored to precipitate in solution, are there any factors that may limit this from happening? Perhaps kinetics?...
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Gypsum saturation index
I did some geochemical modelling and found groundwater samples I have are saturated with respect to the mineral gypsum. I need some help with interpretation, more information is given below.
The ...
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calculation monocationic elements
How to calculate of the number of monocationic millimoles?
If I have concentrations of: $SiO_2$, $TiO_2$, $K_2O$, $MgO$, $MnO$, $Na_2O$, etc.
How can I get $Na^+$, $Mg^{2+}$, $Mn^{2+}$ ..?
This is ...
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Saharian calima dust, apart of Fe2O3 does contain FeO?
It is repeated often that Saharan calimas are fertilizing often Atlantic ocean. But I suppose that most of Saharan dust contains Fe2O3 and not FeO. Am I right?
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Are fossil fuels really formed from fossils?
Hydrocarbons have been found in great abundance elsewhere in the solar system where there is unlikely to be evidence for life past or present. No fossils involved.
Petroleum and natural gas wells ...
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Abiogenesis: Formation of Lipids from Montmorillonite
I have been really interested in scientific hypotheses regarding abiogenesis, particularly the lipid-world hypothesis. However, I could not find information on the chemical pathway that leads to the ...
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1answer
381 views
Crystallization path of diopside-wollastonite-silica systems
Can someone please explain to me (or give a source) how the crystallization diagram of the diopside-wollastonite-silica system looks. I am a new learner of geology and trying to learn ternary systems.
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Where can fluorite be found on Long Island, New York?
I'm interested in fluorite (Since Fluorine is my favorite element, and I wanted a sample of it, even if bonded, but I don't want to buy it; that would be no fun), and I'm curious if it can be found on ...
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What causes a change in composition from basanite to nephelinite?
Can the change in composition from basanite to nephelinite (i.e. increasing alkalis with decreasing SiO2) be explained in terms of fractional crystallisation, or only by a decreasing degree of partial ...
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Why is Thermohaline Circulation (THC) pivotal to life on Earth?
Thermohaline circulation (THC) is an instance in nature in which oceanic fluctuation of amassity, temperature and sodium matter is observed on a global scale. It is compared to and sometimes called ...
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Does perchlorate(rocket fuel) and jet fuel make the salt and ground water near Cape Canaveral dangerous?
I've gotten into paddle surfing and I'm looking for a place to live and surf.
I've been looking at an buying a condo in Cocoa Beach because of it’s proximity to Orlando and Cocoa’s decent but ...
