Looking through a microscope at super-thin
slices of a rock lets you see its mineral
composition.
This is the rock peridotite, made up of small
crystals including olivine and pyroxene.
Even a simple black basalt rock, spewed from
a volcano, becomes a patchwork of colorful
minerals.
It’s sort of like a fruitcake.
You know, you slice it open and there’s
nuts and there’s dried fruit and maybe some
lemon peel.
It’s made of lots of little things, and
it’s not until you slice into that fruitcake
that you see all the stuff inside that makes
it special.
What makes them special is not only their
beauty; minerals have remarkable chemical
and physical properties, and are a source
of many of the elements: nature’s building
blocks.
That is why they’re essential in our modern
world, to make everything from skyscrapers
taller to mobile phones smaller.
Extract the element molybdenum from the mineral
molybdenite to make steel stronger, or add
a pinch of cobalt and your iPhone battery
will last longer.
Minerals are the fundamental building block
of societies.
We wouldn’t have televisions, we wouldn’t
have automobiles, we wouldn’t have buildings
without the mineral riches that we have.
So were the remarkable chemical properties
of minerals also key in creating life?
If so, Earth would need more than it started
with.
