The most abundant mineral in the world was
so far inside the Earth that you probably
never heard of it.
They should have called it hipsterite.
The Earth's most abundant mineral was discovered
in 1879, and until THIS YEAR it didn't have
a name.
What did they call it before now?
All the things?
That stuff?
Hey you!
Yeah, all-ah you!
Nah, they called it silicate-perovskite…
which is kind of a mouthful.
So, this week, after 135 years of unnecessary
complication, the mineral has a name -- bridgmanite.
If that's anticlimactic for you, I can see
why.
Here’s why it took so long to get the name:
just because a geologist discovers something
like silicate-perovskite, doesn't mean it's
a material!
See, in 1879, a meteor shower allowed a number
of rocks to fall from space onto Australia
and on that meteorite they found something
called a silicate-perovskite crystal.
The substance is a magnesium-iron (or calcium)
silicate, which follows a perovskite crystal
pattern.
It looks like a cube, but it’s made of two
positively charged elements held together
by a third negatively charged one.[a]
Bridgmanite is thought to make up about 38
percent of the WHOLE PLANET by volume, BUT
it can ONLY exist at high temperatures and
pressures.
Where on the planet can you get that cocktail
of mineral goodness?
In the mantle!
The 25 mile thick (32 km) crust of the Earth
floats on the upper mantle, and the lower
mantle, where temperatures can reach 5000
degrees Celsius and pressures can reach 1.4
million times the pressure at sea level - that
contains the bridgemanite.
The big deal is, we've never PROVED that's
what it was.
Scientists have done experiments that showed
the mantle was made of bridgmanite, but they
couldn't perfectly confirm what they were
seeing.
Bridgmanite only appeared in the lab, or on
meteorites which had been in high-energy collisions
which mimicked the pressure and temperature
found at the center of a planet! [[breathe]]
Which, as you might imagine, is a fairly rare
find.
Normally, proof lies in the pudding, right?
Scientists had never found a naturally occurring
sample that they could prove, without a doubt,
was bridgemanite!
See, when you put bridgemanite into an electron
microscope, it turns into glass…
So they get a sample, pop it into an electron
microscope to probe its nanostructure… but
the electron beams would react with the bridgemanite
and turn it to glass!!!
I KNOW!!
So, they came up with a new way… a synchrotron,
which sounds like an awesomely 80s carnival
ride, but it's actually a kind of particle
accelerator which uses high-energy X-rays.
Finally, 135 years after its discovery, they
could prove what they were seeing was silicate-perovskite
and the International Mineralogical Association
was all like, okay, NOW you can name it.
Which is pretty frickin' amazing when you
get right down to it.
It was so exciting for the scientists, they
published their findings in the November issue
of the journal Science.
Of course, they called it bridgemanite after
the inventor of high-pressure crystallography,
Percy Bridgeman.
I mean, they could have called it hipsterite
because it's so underground, but whatever
dudes.
It's your rock.
If you're like me, you're wondering what a
century of studying this silicate-perovskite
thingy was all for!
Well, the meteorite formed 4.5 billion years
ago, around the same time as Earth.
That gives scientists a better understanding
of what THAT was like, as well as what's happening
in the innermost regions of the Earth!
So while you and me might not get much from
Bridgemanite, you'll know its name now.
And that's something for bar trivia, for sure.
What would YOU have named an ancient crystalline
mineral that makes up a third 
of the Earth?
It's everywhereite?
