Yep, today we have another bizarre word that I have no idea how to pronounce! This one doesn't hold any linguistic records though.
Instead, it is used to refer to what is the world's rarest mineral! It's so rare that only one crystal has ever been found, in the Mogok region of Myanmar. And it looked like this:
The specimen is now held at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.
Here's a breakdown of its key features:
- Composition: Bismuth antimonate with the chemical formula Bi3+Sb5+O4
- Color: Transparent reddish-orange
- Crystal system: Monoclinic
Hardness: 5 ½ on Mohs scale (moderately scratch-resistant)
It was first described in 2017 by a team of researchers led by Dr. George Rossman but the back story is quite interesting. Initially,it was found by a bunch of villagers who thought it was yet another crystal and put it for sale at the local market.
There a guy called U Kyaw Thu noticed it was a bit different and bought it. That happened in 2010 and eventually he contacted the experts from the United States and the International Mineralogical Association who in 2015 informed him he actually possessed the world's rarest mineral. And the mineral was named after him, hence the weird name :)
And that's the quick rundown behind the discovery of the world's rarest mineral!
Here's the site I used for writing this post if you'd like to do some more reading on the mineral and here's the actual paper describing it.
Although the latter one is too technical for my taste. And boring. Lol.
Ok time for your beloved Wikipedia of useless facts (that's me!) to sign off 😴
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