Newly discovered mineral named for researcher Tyler Spano Lisa Lock Scientific Editor Andrew Zinin Chief Editor Tyler Spano's impact on the field of mineralogy is anything but small. So when a newly discovered mineral, modest in size but significant in meaning, was named spanoite in her honor, it became a fitting tribute to her contributions to the field. The rare mineral, recently discovered by one of Spano's colleagues at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, contains a unique combination of uranium, vanadium and thallium.

This combination has not been found in a mineral before. "It's one of the highest honors that you could receive as a mineralogist," said Spano, a mineralogist at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "So, it was on my bucket list.

It's one of those things where you don't think it's actually going to happen, but it did." Because it's a rare find, spanoite occurs as a small set of crystals, requiring an instrument like a Raman spectrometer to observe its properties. This analytical tool uses light to read molecular vibrations. "In general, it just forms these cute little crystals," said Spano, a senior nuclear security scientist for ORNL's National Security Sciences Directorate.

"That's the case for a lot of the rarer mineral species. They'll only be found in a handful of places, or they'll only exist as a few small crystals." Her contributions to mineralogy played a role in Spano receiving this honor. She discovered new minerals during her doctorate, focusing on those containing both uranium and vanadium.

Then, in the past two years, her colleague Travis Olds reached out for permission to name a new mineral after her. "He has said to me that this is like the most perfect mineral eponym because I worked so much on these materials as a graduate student," Spano said of her colleague. "Even as a postdoc, I continued work on these minerals and found a new mineral in this group." That new mineral she found is called finchite, named after a uranium geologist who wrote and established the literature on uranium and vanadium deposits in the American Southwest.

Spano said it has a similar structure, also contains uranium and vanadium, and is yellow like spanoite. The International Mineralogical Association has an established process for naming newly discovered minerals. Spano said once a mineral is discovered, the researcher cannot name it after themself.

Instead, it can be named for what it's made of, where it was found or another researcher. That's how spanoite came to be. "An international community recognizes that I am an expert.

It's been a confidence boost," she said. While the connection between mineralogy and national security may not be clear at first, Spano said she uses the principles of her expertise every day, helping in nuclear forensics research and nonproliferation missions. "There's a lot of structural similarities in uranium minerals and nuclear fuel cycle materials," said Spano.

"The structures of both of those things can tell us a lot about how something was made or how it aged in the environment, how it was stored." These similarities allow for greater understanding of the chemical composition of nuclear fuel cycle materials and how composition and structure relate back to a material's process history.