Meteorite Mineralogy

Alan Rubin is a meteorite researcher who recently retired from the University of California, where he worked as a research geochemist. He is a fellow of the Meteoritical Society and winner of the Nininger Meteorite Award and seven Griffith Observer science writing awards. He is the namesake of the garnet mineral rubinite and the main-belt asteroid 6227Alanrubin. He has one other published book – Disturbing the Solar System (Princeton, 2004). Chi Ma is a mineralogist at the California Institute of Technology, with research interests in nanomineralogy and the discovery of new minerals, especially those representing extreme conditions of formation. He has discovered and/or led investigations on 45 new minerals, including 14 refractory minerals from the solar nebula and 11 high-pressure minerals. The oxide mineral machiite was named in his honour.

1. Minerals and Meteorites: Historical Foundations and Current Status; 2. Definitions and Explications; 3. Brief review of Crystallography and Crystal Chemistry; 4. Properties of Minerals: Explanations and Applications; 5. Identification of Meteoritic Minerals in Reflected Light, by Back-scattered Electron (BSE) Imaging, and by EDS and EBSD Analyses; 6. Meteorite Classification and Taxonomy; 7. Mineralogy of Major Physical Components of Chondrites; 8. Petrologic and Mineralogical Characteristics of Meteorite Groups; 9. Cosmomineralogy; 10. Formation of Meteoritic Minerals in Gas- and Dust-rich Environments; 11. Formation of Meteoritic Minerals on Parent Bodies; 12. Formation of Meteoritic Minerals in the Terrestrial Environment; 13. The Strange Case of the Aluminum-Copper Alloys; Epilogue; References.