A team of researchers has identified 208 new natural minerals that couldn't have formed from natural chemical processes, but largely from human activities. The study published in the journal American Mineralogist suggests that the activities of people on Earth are generating the natural creation of solid minerals. It also adds that future generations to occupy the Earth will have abundant "solid minerals" whose creation had been due or partly due to human activities on this planet.
Most of the newly identified minerals were dug up in old mine tunnels, and in ancient ruins where water and fire had operated to aid the creation of new natural compounds. The researchers say most of the new minerals were formed within the last 200 years while the others were formed within the past 2,000 years. They added that the world is going through a period when natural minerals are being formed from human activities more than had ever been witnessed on Earth.
The 208 new minerals are approved by the International Mineralogical Association
The researchers were led by Professor Robert Hazen of the Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington DC. Some of the identified new mineral-like compounds are feldspar, quartz, mica, bobcookite, calclacite, and elyite among others. The International Mineralogical Association - which catalogued 5,200 solid mineral samples on Earth, has approved the authenticity of the new 208 natural compounds. This group also identifies and defines what makes a natural compound or solid mineral, the BBC reports.
We are creating new solid minerals for the age to come
Scientific American in the light of the study states that people today are creating reactionary conditions on Earth where future generations of people that will replace us in the next 200+ years will mine natural compounds that are man-made. The publication also adds that a few thousand years from now, new humans on Earth will dig up man-induced mineral compounds from the ruins of our own civilization. According to Hazen, humans produce many products today or create a setting where chemical reactions occur to change the sedimentary horizon of our Earth - factors that will later increase the diversity of minerals for the world to come.
