200-year-old geology mystery resolved

To build mountains from dolomite, a common mineral, it must periodically dissolve. This counter-intuitive lesson could help make new defect-free semiconductors and more. Wenhao Sun, Dow Early Career Assistant Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan, and Joonsoo Kim, a doctoral candidate of materials science and engineering in Professor Sun-s research group, show off dolomite rocks from their lab's collection. The two scientists have developed a theory that could finally explain a two-century old puzzle surrounding dolomite's abundance on Earth. For 200 years, scientists have failed to grow a common mineral in the laboratory under the conditions believed to have formed it naturally. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan have finally pulled it off, thanks to a new theory developed from atomic simulations. Their success resolves a long-standing geology mystery called the "Dolomite Problem.