Chi Ma

Panguite: one of the oldest solar minerals 

Panguite was discovered and named by Chi Ma at Caltech. The name is after Pan Gu, the giant in ancient Chinese mythology, who created the world by separating the heaven and the earth from chaos in the beginning, in allusion to the mineral with an ultra-refractory origin, being among the first solid materials formed in the solar system, likely 4.567 billion years old.

This back-scatter electron image shows panguite [(Ti,Al,Sc,Mg,Zr,Ca)1.8O3] along with davisite in an ultra-refractory inclusion within an amoeboid olivine aggregate from the Allende CV3 meteorite.

(c) 2012 Chi Ma, Caltech