"Wil McCarthy - The Technetium Rush" - читать интересную книгу автора (McCarty Sarah)

The Technetium Rush
by Wil McCarthy

Materials can have many uses, some of which are talked about more openly than
others....

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Bangalore Daily News, 26 July 2011

Byline: Hemant S. Tripathi

Fact: The element technetium is produced in minute quantities by red giant
stars so far away that the light they’re emitting now will someday shine on your
grandchildren’s grandchildren. For our purposes here, that’s far enough not to
matter. Closer to home, the element is sometimes generated by the collision of
molybdenum atoms and “heavy hydrogen” from the sun, or by the natural decay of
uranium. These are freak occurrences, though; aside from the transuranics (which
are about as stable as a life of crime), technetium is the rarest element in the natural
universe and forms no known minerals.

Fact: Of the thirty-two possible crystal classes, only one—the gyroidal
isometric—had, until recently, never been found in the mineral world. Is it mankind
that abhors a vacuum?

Fact: On March 20, 2008, Delhi University-trained geologist Rakesh “Rocky”
Solanki, on an apparently routine survey of the alluvial clays north of Bhilwara,
Rajasthan, found a deposit of fluorescent orange crystals that he couldn’t identify,
and so brought back to his Jaipur office for examination. Later named Tc solankite,
the crystals were hard, translucent, vaguely lustrous and—considering their gyroidal
structure and 20 percent technetium composition—quickly valued at $5,000 per
gram. This is 300 times the price of platinum and twice that of clear uncut diamonds,
so we’re talking about serious money here. Let’s be clear about that.

Since the material had apparently washed down from the nearby Arvalli
Mountains sometime in the past thousand years, Solanki’s discovery touched off,
almost immediately—the greatest land rush since the Canadian diamond wars of the
1990s. But can we really believe Solanki’s gambling debts, criminal connections, and
curious patterns of stock and land ownership have nothing to do with his sudden
good fortune?

Hey, no one’s on trial here; the guy may be as innocent as a bride. Or, this
may be one of the most sordid chapters in the oft-opprobrious history of mineral
science. Place your bets and let’s get moving; this rag doesn’t pay me by the hour.

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 Our story begins with the Canadian Diamond Rush of 1991, when geologists
Charles Fipke (a forty-five-year-old with a mere bachelor’s degree) and Stewart
Blusson (with a pilot’s license and twenty years in the bush) braved arctic winters
and hungry bears to outwit the De Beers cartel and 258 other mining companies to