How Do I Become a Mineralogist?

Mineralogy is a branch of geology that studies the chemical composition, crystal structure, morphology, properties, time, and spatial distribution of minerals, and the history and use of formation and evolution. Many production sectors, such as mining, processing chemicals, building materials, pesticides, fertilizers, gems, and some cutting-edge science and technology are inseparable from mineral raw materials. Therefore, mineralogical research not only has theoretical significance, but also has important practical significance for the development and application of mineral resources. People who specialize in mineralogy are called mineralogists.

Mineralogist

Right!

When he grows up, he wants to be a civil engineer, which his parents taught him. His mother even made a essay to let him carry it down to meet the entrance examination. In the old society, civil engineers were more likely to find jobs, especially railways, which were called "

The Guangzhou Conference of 1961 was held, and the party's policy and evaluation of intellectuals had been greatly loosened. Ye Danian was undoubtedly a gospel. He was determined to be a graduate student, and after graduating from university in 1962, he was approved to apply for a graduate student. As a result, he was admitted to the graduate school of Professor He Zuolin of the Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Mr. He Zuolin is a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He attaches great importance to students' basic skills training. One day he gave Ye Danian a very good crystal, and there was no method for him to identify it. Ye Danian did not use the conventional method, but used the method of two centuries ago and contacted the goniometer to identify it as Fushan Stone. The gentleman asked him why he used this method, and he replied, so as to avoid damaging the crystal, he was very satisfied with his answer. Someone in the research room teased him, and found a very transparent crystal. He asked what mineral he was. He knew in his heart that the consultation was false, and he wanted to test it out. He thought, "I am a graduate of Coban Rock and Minerals. I can't 'plant' this mineral." It didn't take long before he used the "water immersion method" to identify it as trona. The flooding method was learned by teacher Qu Yihua from a former Soviet salt lake expert, and she taught them this trick. Ye Danian's rock room is for igneous rocks and metamorphic rocks, and will not touch trona. He suddenly thought of the alkali box in the bathroom, ah. It turned out to be a trick to trick him. At one time, we "discovered" many transparent crystals and very intact crystals in the artificial heavy sand of granite. Everyone didn't know what it was. He asked him to take a look. He immediately confirmed that it was not a mineral, but Cuban sugar. Everyone thought he was joking, and it was sweet in his mouth. After asking the truth, someone put the sugar bag on the specimen box, and the sugar bag was a little leaky. After showing a few hands, people no longer "dared" to underestimate him in identifying minerals.

Mr. He originally wanted Ye Danian to study the granite contact zone, which was unsatisfactory. He wanted to study the relationship between mineral optical properties and crystal structure. Mr. He was very open-minded and agreed with him. Mr. He wrote a letter to Teacher Peng Zhizhong. Entrusted Mr. Peng Zhizhong to guide Ye Danian to learn the method of measuring crystal structure. Since then he has been studying under the guidance of two famous teachers. As early as the second year of college, he paid attention to the relationship between the optical properties and structure of minerals, and now he has the opportunity to study it. In 1964 he published his first paper in "Science Bulletin"-"Quantitative Relationship between the Closest Packing Structure of Oxygen Ions and the Refractive Index of Minerals". Since then, he has continued to study in this field for more than two decades, and finally in 1988 Published a monograph-"Structural Light Mineralogy", fulfilled his wish. Professor Bloss, a world-renowned mineralogist, wrote in the preface to Ye Danian's monograph: "This is the world's first monograph on this subject." A theory is not only because it can explain the past reality, but also because it is predictive. In structural light mineralogy, he was most proud of two things. First, he used his formula to predict that the coordination number of lithium in the structure of the new mineral sillimanite is four, not six. It was later proved by Zhang Hanqing's structural analysis; in the second case, he predicted that the angle between the carbonate planes in the sodalite structure was 52 °, and the results of Ma Zhesheng and Shi Nicheng's structure measurements were almost the same as his prediction.

[2] The theory of high temperature kiln burning

In the "Cultural Revolution", Ye Danian felt that theory should be combined with reality, so they chose stone foundry, which is magma foundry. For those who study geology, the word magma does not leave the mouth, but the real hot magma has not been seen. Based on this, he took the initiative to systematically study the theoretical and technical issues of cast stone science, so that China can catch up with the world's advanced level in this field. . He worked in the factory for 5 years, and sincerely followed Chairman Mao's teachings, "Become a student of the masses first, and then be a sir of the masses." He has not regretted it yet, where he learned a lot and obtained Very satisfied with the results. In addition to mastering the technology of cast stone production, he established a calculation method for cast stone ingredients and the residual silicon index method, which was proposed based on the theory of the ternary system of diopside-calcite-feldspar-sodium feldspar. He studied the cause of ball formation in cast stone, etc. Ye Danian almost studied the theoretical problems raised in the production of cast stone at that time, and most of them were solved. He performed simulations in the laboratory as much as possible, and also obtained some theoretical results related to geology, which proved that basalt magma crystallized under supercooling conditions, which is conducive to the precipitation of pyroxene and inhibited the crystallization of plagioclase. He pointed out that This is a false high-pressure effect. Due to the needs of cast stone production, he also solved the problem of identifying monoclinic pyroxene by X-ray powder method, which has not been solved by mineralogists for many years.

[3] In memory of oblivion

In 1975, Ye Danian was ordered to participate in the "Rich Iron Mine Battle" of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and served as the captain of the metamorphic rock unit of the Xuchang team. Although he has not been engaged in field work for many years, he still believes that "other people can do something that I can certainly Learn to do it. " During the iron ore battle, he discovered 3T polysilicon muscovite and C-type eclogites in the Xinyang area, thus demonstrating that the Qinling-Dabie Mountains are the sutures of the Yangtze plate and the North China plate. After the article was published, the response in the country was so great that some young scholars thought he was a geotectonist. He said, "In fact, this is a misunderstanding. I do nt understand geotectonics. This article is a 'hands-on sheep' in iron ore work." That's it. The geological action of the ultrahigh pressure in the Dabie Mountains is now a hotspot for research. Let me mention my discovery as a memorial of oblivion. "

[4] Do things that no one has done before

Geology has a very large area. The so-called research has a lot of work. In fact, it only uses foreigners' theories to explain China's geological problems. Ye Danian said: "Honestly, I have no interest in this kind of scientific research. I want to study things that others have not studied, or use other people's different methods to study problems, and use it as a quick way." His research work is mainly focused on It has universal, basic, and no regional problems in mineralogy, petrology, and crystal chemistry, especially the quantitative laws. For example, he used the crystallographic Bravi space lattice model to solve the random and unequal particle random stacking problem, and demonstrated that multiple random stacking constants exist; he proposed a new concept of molecular and ion cluster topological volumes, Depressed molecular volume conforms to the principle of additivity; it is proposed that the average occupied volume of oxygen ions in each layer of the earth is conserved and so on. His research work was rarely asked, and he inevitably felt like a peacemaker. At a Chinese academic conference, he ended with "not a bad singer, but he knows the sound is rare".

[5] Measure the map with a compass and ruler

Ye Danian liked to look at maps since he was a child. The elementary school teacher told them that Hunan and Jiangxi are very similar, Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake, and Xiang, Zi, Dai, Xi and Xiu, Jiang, Xin, and Xi correspond one-to-one. Geohistory teacher Wang Hong taught the students to memorize the map. He drew a large "W" on the blackboard, saying that the inflection point in the middle is Wuhan, and the next two inflection points are Yueyang and Jiujiang. The two circles are Dongting Lake and Poyang Lake ... which shows that there are regular things in the map. Wegner proposed the famous "continental drift" theory based on the fact that the coasts of the east coast of the Americas and the west coast of Africa are similar. For decades, Ye Danian has been thinking: can there be amazing discoveries on ordinary maps? He is a mineralogist and researches symmetry in his field. In 1996, he suddenly germinated the concept of "geographic symmetry", that is, to use the expanded concept of symmetry (including antisymmetric, color symmetry, oblique symmetry, and curve symmetry) to examine the degree The map shows the unknown laws that others cannot see. For example, from Wuhan to Mufu Mountain to Luo Xiaoshan, a straight line is drawn, and Hunan and Jiangxi are symmetrical with this straight line as the axis of symmetry. He spent three full years studying the maps of China and the world at different scales, and is currently writing a monograph entitled "Symmetry in Economic Geography." According to the principle of geographical symmetry, he pointed out that Huaihua, Hunan, has the advantage of developing the economy, and wrote a long article, "Huaihua-A Focus on the Development of the Central and Western China." The article is in the full text of Huaihua Daily and Hunan Daily. After the publication, the response was great. He believed that he had surpassed his more than 130 papers published in the past, and deeply felt the joy of his scientific research results to serve the national economy.