Elements Magazine—Special Issue on Cosmic Dust

Elements is the international magazine of Mineralogy, Geochemistry, and Petrology published jointly by seventeen participating societies, six times a year. The June 2016 issue (volume 12, number 3) is devoted to cosmic dust and guest edited by Susan Taylor (Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, New Hampshire), Donald Brownlee (University of Washington), and George Flynn (State University of New York at Plattsburgh). Though a subscription, individual or institutional, is needed to access the articles online, the Elements homepage is available to everyone. Gordon E. Brown Jr. (Stanford University), Bernard J. Wood (University of Oxford, UK), and Friedhelm von Blanckenburg (GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and Freie Universität Berlin) served as principal editors in charge of the issue, which carries these articles:

"NASA's Cosmic Dust Program: Collecting Dust Since 1981" p. 159-160, by Michael Zolensky (NASA Cosmic Dust Curator, NASA Johnson Space Center)

"Cosmic Dust: Building Blocks of Planets Falling from the Sky" p. 165-170, by Donald E. Brownlee (University of Washington)

"Cosmic Dust: Finding a Needle in a Haystack" p. 171-176, by Susan Taylor (Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, New Hampshire), Scott Messenger (NASA Johnson Space Center), and Luigi Folco (Università di Pisa)

"Composition of Cosmic Dust: Sources and Implications for the Early Solar System" p. 177-183, by George J. Flynn (State University of New York at Plattsburgh), Larry R. Nittler (Carnegie Institution of Washington), and Cécile Engrand (CSNSM at Université Paris Sud, CNRS)

"Organic Matter in Cosmic Dust" p. 185-189, by Scott A. Sandford (NASA Ames Research Center), Cécile Engrand (CSNSM at Université Paris Sud, CNRS), and Alessandra Rotundi (University of Naples, Italy and INAF-Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Rome)

"Geochemical Tracers of Extraterrestrial Matter in Sediments" p. 191-196, by Bernhard Peucker-Ehrenbrink (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution), Greg Ravizza (University of Hawai‘i), and Gisela Winckler (Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University)

"Cosmic Dust Toolbox: Microanalytical Instruments and Methods" p. 197-202, by Andrew J. Westphal (University of California, Berkeley), Gregory F. Herzog (Rutgers University), and George J. Flynn (State University of New York at Plattsburgh)


See also PSRD CosmoSparks report: Brownleeite: The First New Mineral Identified From a Comet.

 (pdf version)

Written by Linda M. V. Martel, Hawai‘i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology, for PSRD.