The international team of scientists have published a report on meteorite fragments collected from Katol in Nagpur.
- The paper published in PNAS reports the first natural occurrence of a mineral called bridgmanite. The mineral was named in 2014 after Prof. Percy W. Bridgman, recipient of the 1946 Nobel Prize in Physics.
- The bridgmanite in the meteorite was found to be formed at pressures of about 23 to 25 gigapascals generated by the shock event.
- Various computational and experimental studies have shown that about 80% of the Earth’s lower mantle is made up of bridgmanite.
- On May 22, 2012, a large meteor shower occurred near the town of Katol in Nagpur. The next day, researchers from the Geological Survey of India collected about 30 meteorite fragments with the largest weighing around a kilogram.
- Initial studies had revealed that the host rock was mainly composed of olivine, an olive-green mineral. Olivine is the most abundant phase in our Earth’s upper mantle.
(Source: Indian Express)
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