Ed Grew part of the team describing another new mineral
Research Professor Ed Grew was part of an international team of scientists to discover, describe, and report a new sulphate-borate mineral. The new mineral, fontarnauite, is a double salt of sodium and strontium and the eighth sulphate-borate mineral identified so far. It was discovered and characterized by a group of scientists from the Science and Technology Centres and Faculty of Geology of the University of Barcelona, Spain, in collaboration with Ed Grew and mineralogists from the University of Manitoba. The new compound was found in 2009 on a geological survey carried out in the Emet Borate District (Anatolia, western Turkey), one of the most important Miocene borate deposits in the world. Its name pays tribute to Ramon Fontarnau i Griera (1944-2007), who headed the Material Characterization Section of the Science and Technology Centres. The mineral and name received official approval by the Commission on New Minerals, Nomenclature and Classification of the International Mineralogical Association in September 2014, and a full description is in press in Canadian Mineralogist.