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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What types of rocks are these [closed]
I can’t figure out what type of rocks these are I would like to create pigment out of them to make a watercolor want to make sure they are safe, one is brick red the other is more of a deep magenta, ...
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Possible and probable source of Curiosity Rover's $\small\sf{CH_4}$ detection on Mars
Past week, NASA announced Curiosity Rover measured 21 ppbv of $\small\sf{CH_4}$ on Mars.
This week, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover found a surprising result: the largest amount of methane ever ...
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37 views
How is the difference in crust and mantle composition explained?
We know that the composition of the crust is SiAl and SiMa and the one of mantle is mostly ophiolites, but why? Which are the geological processes that make this difference exist?
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Molten salt seas on the future Earth
As the sun gets brighter, the oceans are expected to evaporate by the next billion years or so (the vapor slowly gets stripped off into space). The salt, which is less dense than most rocks, will be ...
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1answer
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Potassum-Argon Dating and Proportions of Daughter Products in Potassium 40 Decay Channel
So Potassium 40 decays in such a way that roughly 89% of it becomes Calcium 40 and 11% of it becomes Argon 40. When they list these figures are they implying that after 1 half-life, of the 50% of the ...
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13 views
Why is sulfate reduction less important in freshwater sediments?
Is this due to increased salinity reducing sulfate concentration or the production of marsh gas converting sulfate to hydrogen sulfide or something else?
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1answer
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How does friction and radiolysis provide hydrogen for “unusual types of methane”?
The fascinating New York Times article Gas That Makes a Mountain Breathe Fire Is Turning Up Around the World talks about the Flames of Chimaera and the Deep Carbon Observatory:
And a series of ...
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1answer
50 views
Which are the mechanisms of the correlation between atmospheric carbon dioxid and global warming/cooling?
In the end of glacial periods there seems to be an increasing release of carbon dioxide as the global warming increase and at the end of these global warming periods the content of carbon dioxide in ...
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69 views
How much hydrogen can be extracted from the deep continental crust?
Far below the earth's surface, hydrogen gas is continuously produced through serpentinization. At least some fraction of this hydrogen remains trapped in the deep continental crust; indeed, Soviet ...
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How do you interpret Oxygen Isotope changes?
In a paper I am reading, the authors note "large (5-7%) negative shifts in the oxygen isotopic composition of geologic proxy materials" (Davis 2008, pg. 102) in several regional basins. This is then ...
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1answer
45 views
How acidic waters make rocks disappear?
I was working on this science project.
I was on step 11, day. 4. Since day 2, I found out that my pH and the mass of the rock (limestone) stopped changing. This project should proves acidic water ...
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73 views
Why Earth's outer core does not dissolve into the mantle?
It is well accepted that the outer core is made out of liquid iron and nickel, and as everything else it should tend to reach chemical equilibrium with its surrounding.
In particular, I would expect ...
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Why the “Mission to Earth’s core” proposal suggests using liquid iron instead of lead?
Nature communications article "Mission to Earth's core — a modest proposal", suggests placing a large volume of liquid iron in a crack and let it sink all the way to the Earth's core, carrying along a ...
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160 views
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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26 views
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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1answer
100 views
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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3answers
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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
99 views
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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1answer
50 views
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
63 views
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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1answer
170 views
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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1answer
118 views
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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32 views
Employment of Volcanologists and Petrologists
What industries or government departments hire volcanologists and igneous petrologists/geochemists in the United States?
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2answers
941 views
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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2answers
106 views
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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1answer
197 views
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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1answer
153 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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1answer
289 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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0answers
65 views
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
78 views
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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1answer
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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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1answer
178 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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1answer
7k views
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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45 views
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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1answer
76 views
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
426 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
65 views
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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1answer
159 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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100 views
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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1answer
49 views
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 ...
