Chemicals/Berylliums

The "presence in ... cosmic radiation [is] of a much greater proportion of "secondary" nuclei, such as lithium, beryllium and boron, than is found generally in the universe."

Bromellite is a mineral found on Earth composed of BeO, with 50 at % beryllium.

Emissions
The visual spectrum for beryllium is missing characteristic lines in the yellow and orange.

Beryllium has at least six emission/absorption lines across the red.

The emission and absorption spectra for beryllium contain lines in the blue.

Above is a light spectrum of the emission and absorption lines of neutral, atomic beryllium.

Particles
Notation: let the symbol DPM represent Diesel vehicle exhaust Particulate Matter.

"Moreover DPM can bear metals like antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, magnesium, manganese, nickel, vanadium and zinc ... the dominant group of particles had a diameter of 20 to 25 nm (at 900 rpm 50% load or 25 to 30 nm 100% load) for individual soot nodules."

Alpha particles
A photon carrying 1.67 MeV or more energy can photodisintegrate an atom of beryllium-9 (100% of natural beryllium, its only stable isotope):
 * (γ,n) 2α

Antimony-124 is assembled with beryllium to make laboratory neutron sources and startup neutron sources. Antimony-124 (half-life 60.20 days) emits β− and 1.690 MeV gamma rays (also 0.602 MeV and 9 fainter emissions from 0.645 to 2.090 MeV), yielding stable tellurium-124. Gamma rays from Antimony-124 knock neutrons off beryllium-9 with an average kinetic energy of 24keV, intermediate neutrons. The other product is two alpha particles.

Other isotopes have higher thresholds for photoneutron production, as high as 18.72 MeV, for carbon-12.

Cosmic rays
Def. "an energetic particle originating outside our solar system" is called a cosmic ray.

"Cosmic rays arise from galactic source accelerators."

Cosmic rays may be upwards of a ZeV (1021 eV).

About 89% of cosmic rays are simple protons or hydrogen nuclei, 10% are helium nuclei of alpha particles, and 1% are the nuclei of heavier elements. Solitary electrons constitute much of the remaining 1%.

Def. cosmic rays that originate from astrophysical sources are called primary cosmic rays.

Def. cosmic rays that are created when primary cosmic rays interact with interstellar matter are called secondary cosmic rays.

Def. low energy cosmic rays associated with solar flares are called solar cosmic rays.

Cosmic rays are not charge balanced; that is, positive ions heavily outnumber electrons. The positive ions are
 * 1) free protons,
 * 2) alpha particles (helium nuclei),
 * 3) lithium nuclei,
 * 4) beryllium nuclei, and
 * 5) boron nuclei.

Def. a nuclear reaction in which a nucleus fragments into many nucleons is called spallation.

Cosmic rays cause spallation when a ray particle (e.g. a proton) impacts with matter, including other cosmic rays. The result of the collision is the expulsion of large numbers of nucleons (protons and neutrons) from the object hit.

Carbon and oxygen nuclei collide with interstellar matter to form lithium, beryllium and boron in a process termed cosmic ray spallation. Spallation is also responsible for the abundances of scandium, titanium, vanadium, and manganese ions in cosmic rays produced by collisions of iron and nickel nuclei with interstellar matter.

"Good agreement is seen between the 14C [...] and 10Be [...] records, which confirms they are indeed measuring changes of the GCR flux, since their respective transport processes from the atmosphere to archive are completely different. After its formation, 14C is rapidly oxidised to 14CO2 and then enters the carbon cycle and may reach a tree-ring archive. On the other hand, 10Be attaches to aerosols and eventually settles as rain or snow, where it may become embedded in a stable ice-sheet archive. The correlation between high GCR flux and cold North Atlantic temperatures embraces the Little Ice Age, which is seen not as an isolated phenomenon but rather as the most recent of around ten such events during the Holocene. This suggests that the Sun may spend a substantial fraction of time in a magnetically-quiet state."

Alloys
Beryllium copper (BeCu), also known as copper beryllium (CuBe), beryllium bronze and spring copper, is a copper alloy with 0.5–3% beryllium, but can contain other elements as well. Beryllium can be alloyed with nickel and aluminum.

Materials
Beryllium occurs in a hexgonal close-packed (hcp) crystal structure at room temperature (α-Be).

As indicated in the phase diagram on the left beryllium occurs as (β-Be) which is bcc at higher temperatures up to melting.

Native beryllium is not known to occur on the surface of the Earth, but may eventually be found among beryllium-bearing minerals in small amounts.

Behoites
The natural pure beryllium hydroxide is rare (in form of the mineral behoite, orthorhombic) or very rare (clinobehoite, monoclinic).

Meteorites
Moldavite is an olive-green or dull greenish vitreous substance possibly formed by a meteorite impact. It is one kind of tektite.

Because of their difficult fusibility, extremely low water content, and its chemical composition, the current overwhelming consensus among Earth scientists is that moldavites were formed 15 million years ago during the impact of a giant meteorite in present-day Nördlinger Ries. Splatters of material that was melted by the impact cooled while they were actually airborne and most fell in central Bohemia—traversed by [the] Vltava river. Currently, moldavites have been found in [an] area that includes southern Bohemia, western Moravia, the Cheb Basin (northwest Bohemia), Lusatia (Germany), and Waldviertel (Austria). Isotope analysis of samples of moldavites have shown a beryllium-10 isotope composition similar to the composition of Australasian tektites (Australites)and Ivory Coast tektites (Ivorites). Their similarity in beryllium-10 isotope composition indicates that moldavites, Australites, and Ivorites consist of near surface and loosely consolidated terrestrial sediments melted by hypervelocity impacts.

Petrochemistry
Many rocky objects are composed of oxide minerals. Oxygen has three known stable isotopes: 16O, 17O, and 18O.

"The stable isotopic compositions of low-mass (light) elements such as oxygen, hydrogen, [helium, lithium, beryllium, boron,] carbon, nitrogen, [fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus,] and sulfur are normally reported as "delta" ([δ]) values in parts per thousand (denoted as ‰ [per mille]) enrichments or depletions relative to a standard of known composition."

For 18O to 16O:


 * $$\delta ^{18}O = \Biggl( \frac{\bigl( \frac{^{18}O}{^{16}O} \bigr)_{sample}}{\bigl( \frac{^{18}O}{^{16}O} \bigr)_{standard}} -1 \Biggr) * 1000\ ^{o}\!/\!_{oo}$$

The "ratio [by convention is] of the heavy to light isotope in the sample or standard."

"Various isotope standards are used for reporting isotopic compositions; the compositions of each of the standards have been defined as 0‰. Stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopic ratios are normally reported relative to the SMOW standard ("Standard Mean Ocean Water" (Craig, 1961b)) or the virtually equivalent VSMOW (Vienna-SMOW) standard. Carbon stable isotope ratios are reported relative to the PDB (for Pee Dee Belemnite) or the equivalent VPDB (Vienna PDB) standard. The oxygen stable isotope ratios of carbonates are commonly reported relative to PDB or VPDB, also. Sulfur and nitrogen isotopes are reported relative to CDT (for Cañon Diablo Troilite) and AIR (for atmospheric air), respectively."

"Ordinary water consists of slightly different kinds of so-called isotopic water molecules of equal chemical properties but different masses: a light one (H2O16), which occurs most frequently by far in natural waters, and quite a few heavier ones, of which the H2O18 and the [deuterium, D) HDO16 components occur in concentrations of approximately 2000 and 320 ppm (parts per million) water molecules, respectively. Due to slightly different vapour pressures and rates of reaction, the concentrations of the isotopic components change somewhat during phase-shifts in the natural water cycle".

Ice "cores contain a wealth of information on past climates in the form of a great number of parameters, of which some are listed below:"
 * 1) Concentrations of the oxygen-18 and deuterium components of water in the ice give information about the cloud temperature and precipitation at the time of deposition,
 * 2) the content of air in bubbles reveals the altitude of the then ice surface,
 * 3) the concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane in the air bubbles tell about the greenhouse effect in past atmospheres,
 * 4) the chemical composition of the ice itself gives information about other aspects of the chemistry in past atmospheres,
 * 5) dust and calcium concentration tell about the violence and frequency of the storms that carried dust from ice free areas to the inland ice, and
 * 6) the acidity of the ice indicates the fall-out of volcanic acids and thereby past volcanic activity.

Stars
"The atmospheres of the two program stars (HR 6158 = 28 Her = HD 149212; HR 8915 = 69 Peg = HD 220933) contain an inordinate amount of beryllium (Be); in fact, the Be abundances in these stars are among the highest known. ... lithium (Li) is detected in neither HR 6158 nor HR 8915."

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