New mineral named for ORNL researcher Tyler Spano

Tyler Spano's impact on the field of mineralogy is anything but small. So, when a newly discovered mineral, modest in size but significant in meaning, was named spanoite in her honor, it became a fitting tribute to her contributions to the field.

The rare mineral, recently discovered by one of Spano's colleagues at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, contains a unique combination of uranium, vanadium and thallium. This combination has not been found in a mineral before.

"It's one of the highest honors that you could receive as a mineralogist," said Spano, a mineralogist at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. "So, it was on my bucket list. It's one of those things where you don't think it's actually going to happen, but it did."

Since it's a rare find, spanoite occurs as a small set of crystals, needing an instrument like a Raman Spectrometer to see its properties. This is an analytical tool that uses light to read molecular vibrations.

"In general, it just forms these cute little crystals," said Spano, a senior nuclear security scientist for ORNL's National Security Sciences Directorate. "That's the case for a lot of the rarer mineral species. They'll only be found in a handful of places, or they'll only exist as a few small crystals."

Her contributions to mineralogy played a role in Spano receiving this honor. She discovered new minerals during her doctorate , focused on those containing both uranium and vanadium. Then, in the past two years, her colleague Travis Olds reached out for permission in naming a new mineral after her.

"He has said to me that this is like the most perfect mineral eponym because I worked so much on these materials as a graduate student," Spano said of her colleague. "Even as a postdoc, I continued work on these minerals and found a new mineral in this group."

That new mineral she found is called finchite, named after a uranium geologist who wrote and established the literature on uranium and vanadium deposits in the American Southwest. Spano said it has a similar structure, also contains uranium and vanadium and is yellow like spanoite.

The International Mineralogical Association has an established process when it comes to naming newly discovered minerals. Spano said once a mineral is discovered, the researcher cannot name it after themself. Instead, it can be named after what it's made of, where it was found, or another researcher.

That's how spanoite came to be.

"An international community recognizes that I am an expert. It's been a confidence boost," she said.

While the connection between mineralogy and national security may not be clear at first, Spano said she uses the principles of her expertise every day, helping in nuclear forensics research and nonproliferation missions.

"There's a lot of structural similarities in uranium minerals and nuclear fuel cycle materials," said Spano. "The structures of both of those things can tell us a lot about how something was made or how it aged in the environment, how it was stored."

These similarities allow for greater understanding of the chemical composition of nuclear fuel cycle materials and how composition and structure relate back to a material's process history.

That's what keeps her going, the ability to learn something new, make new discoveries, contribute to new research. It helps Spano feel like her work is making an impact.

"It's just leading to a greater understanding of the types of materials that exist for uranium, and how that relates back to how they were made and what that can tell us about keeping the country safe," she said.

This drive to learn something new and solve difficult questions is why Spano became a scientist. And it makes the honor of having a mineral named after her feel so much more special. It shows there's payoff to using your expertise in a way you never expected.

"One of the things I like the most about my career is being able to work with lots of different people who did just that," Spano said, "who come from very different backgrounds and work on similar problems but have different perspectives."