Useful petrological and mineralogical tools
SIMS mapping in IGGCAS. Photographed on Jan 4, 2024.
Electron Microprobe Laboratory, Department of Earth and Atmospheric science, University of Alberta
The users can download various data processing tools (including mineral composition/classification spreadsheets, CIPW normative calculation software, mineralogy databases, etc) from this website.
The users can download various templates of geochemical diagrams and thermobarometers from this website.
This is a very useful software for modeling forward/reverse crystallisation of silicate melts, and modeling post-entrapment re-equilibration effect of olivine-hosted melt inclusions.
Kayla is an experimental petrologist in Jacobs–NASA Johnson Space Center. She developed this excellent website at 2017, which summarizes lots of practical spreadsheets, calculators, and Python codes in modeling magmatism and magma evolution processes on rocky planets.
Dr. Keith D. Putirka’s website
Keith is an igneous petrologist and volcanologist in Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, California State University. He is world famous for developing thermobarometers, which were integrated in his personal website.
Theriak-Domino THERMOCALC PerpleX alphaMELTS GeoPS
These are most widely-used tools for thermodymic modelings of crystal-magma system.
Lunar/LROC QuickMap Mercury QuickMap Mars QuickMap
These great websites offer high-resolution remote sensing images of the Moon, Mercury, and Mars, some name features of important sites/craters, and collections of various remote sensing image data. These are commonly used websites in the field of planetary remote sensing.
This website gathers the latest literatures on planetary science (especially petrology/mineralogy/geochemistry of meteorites) and is updated daily or every few days.
Meteorite Picture of the Day (MPOD)
This website updates a daily photographic image of meteorites, similar to the “Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD)“.
The Martian Meteorite Compendium
The first two are encyclopedias of advanced lunar and Martian samples, and the last one is a search interface for papers from planetary science conferences.
Where to purchase meteorites?
Excellent pieces of Msied meteorite (H4-6). Photographed on Dec 26, 2021.
I purchase meteorites from eBay very often. The two meteorite sellers with the most cooperation are Fabien Kunz and Matthew Stream. Fabien Kunz also has his own website: wwmeteorites.
I also purchase meteorites from Jim Strope, Luc Labenne and Isabelle Pothier. They sell really good samples for research.
In addition, I have noticed several other meteorite-for-sale websites. However, I didn’t try to purchase samples from most of them. Nevertheless, I list these websites below and for the readers’ reference.
Spacerox Impactika Meteor-Centor Galactic Stone Meteorite market Allmeteorites Aerolite meteorites SR Meteorites SV Meteorites Eegooblago meteorites Haberer meteorites Hanno Strufe – Meteorite Collector Meteorite.fr Meteorite Recon Decker Meteorite-Shop Sahara-Nayzak Michael Farmer Meteorites Mile High Meteorites PolandMET Meteorites Sahara Gems Solar Anamnesis The Meteorite Exchange Top Meteorite Utas Collection of Meteorites Sky Fall Meteorites