bridgmanite

[brij-muh-nahyt]

noun

Mineralogy.

1. a magnesium-silicate mineral, MgSiO 3 , the most abundant mineral on earth, making up around 70 percent of the lower mantle.

Word History and Origins

Origin of bridgmanite¹

Bridgman ( def. ) + -ite ¹ ( def. ); coined by Chi Ma (U.S. mineralogist) and Oliver Tschauner (German-born mineralogist) in 2014

Example Sentences

This was exactly the kind of crush Fei and his collaborators needed to get a small sample of bridgmanite, a mineral abundant in Earth’s lower mantle, up to super-Earth pressures.

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The article, authored by a team that included several Sandia scientists, delved into experiments on bridgmanite conducted at the labs’ Z Pulsed Power Facility, or Z machine.

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While one of the most abundant materials on the planet, bridgmanite is next to impossible to find naturally.

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It can also be found in meteorites, said Sandia scientist Chris Seagle, who proposed studying bridgmanite using the Z machine.

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To complete the study, the Sandia team partnered with the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., where Yingwei Fei, a scientist and co-author of the article, makes bridgmanite in a lab.

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