{"id":411,"date":"2021-01-04T20:00:10","date_gmt":"2021-01-04T20:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wwmedia.news\/?p=411"},"modified":"2021-01-04T20:00:10","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T20:00:10","slug":"kernowite-new-mineral-species-discovered-on-rock-mined-in-cornwall-220-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/?p=411","title":{"rendered":"Kernowite: New mineral species discovered on rock mined in Cornwall 220 years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A new dark green species of mineral has been discovered by scientists examining a rock which was mined in Cornwall around 220 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kernowite, named after Kernow – the Cornish language word for the county – was found by a team at London’s Natural History Museum, led by Mike Rumsey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mineralogist said: “A lot of these discoveries happened over 100 years ago when the mines were still active.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“So the discovery of a new mineral from\u00a0Cornwall<\/strong>, particularly one that related to the regions most famous mineral, is really quite amazing.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Mike
Mike Rumsey said the discovery ‘is really quite amazing’. Pic: Natural History Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The rock sample containing Kernowite was in the museum’s collection since 1964 but had been labelled as a loroconite mineral – a bright blue mineral also found in Cornwall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The county is a world UNESCO heritage site – known around the world as a place where new minerals have been found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mr Rumsey made the discovery while analysing a rock taken from the Wheal Gorland mine located in St Day village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mine was used between 1790 and 1909 but has now been demolished and replaced with a housing estate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unless other samples are discovered elsewhere, the one example of Kernowite at the museum and another in a private collection are the only known examples of the mineral in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Rumsey's
Rumsey’s team discovered Kernowite was a new species of mineral – and not liroconite. Pic: Natural History Museum<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mrs Rumsey said: “There is nothing left. It’s an extinct locality, we can never go back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“What we’ve got is a bit like a little time capsule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The fact that this sample was preserved in a museum means that we can do this kind of research because we’d never be able to go back and collect anymore.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For hundreds of years, experts have thought green crystals were a variation of the liroconite mineral – but Mr Rumsey’s team found it has a different chemical makeup, and therefore can classify it as a different entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The museum’s principal curator of minerals continued: “Liroconite is this beautiful, gorgeous bright blue mineral that comes from Cornwall and I was trying to understand why its colour varies from bright teal-blue all the way to a dark emerald green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It turns out that the darkest green samples are sufficiently chemically different to the blue’s that we, as mineralogists, would define it as a new species.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also said: “It’s amazing that in 2020 we are adding a new mineral.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Around 100 distinct minerals are discovered every year – and very rarely do they have large colourful crystals or are found in the UK.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new dark green species of mineral has been discovered by scientists examining a rock which was mined in Cornwall around 220 years ago. Kernowite, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=411"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":413,"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411\/revisions\/413"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsarea.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}