bridgmanite

American  

[brij-muh-nahyt] / ˈbrɪdʒ məˌnaɪt /

noun

Mineralogy.

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

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Etymology

Origin of bridgmanite

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

Example Sentences

Earlier experiments suggested that bridgmanite could only hold small amounts of water.

From Science Daily • Dec. 26, 2025

Their simulations suggest that, because bridgmanite held water so efficiently under extreme heat, the lower mantle became the largest water reservoir within the solid Earth after the magma ocean cooled.

From Science Daily • Dec. 26, 2025

The researchers showed that bridgmanite, the most abundant mineral in Earth's mantle, can function like a microscopic "water container."

From Science Daily • Dec. 26, 2025

During Earth's hottest magma ocean phase, newly formed bridgmanite could have stored far more water than scientists once believed.

From Science Daily • Dec. 26, 2025

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.

From Scientific American • Jul. 21, 2021