TAMPA, Fla. — The USF School of Geosciences is gaining international attention after one of its professors revealed the discovery of a rock never before seen on Earth.
When Dr. Matthew Pasek looks through his microscope, he sees more than just a rock, but a scientific breakthrough he had been hypothesizing about for years—and you’ll never guess where he found it.
“There was a thunderstorm in New Port Richey, Florida, and some people went out afterwords and saw that a tree and a tree root had been struck by it,” said Pasek. "Dug it up, and said, ‘hey, we’ll sell it on eBay.'"
Dr. Pasek purchased the rock for $150 and soon discovered that it contained a phosphorous material never seen before on the surface of the earth.
He believes this isn’t the first time this type of rock was formed on Earth, just the first time scientists noticed it.
“Lightning traveled down, probably went into the roots and some of those roots had bits of iron around them, and then the root and the iron and the sand all kind of melted together,” said Pasek.
Pasek’s findings were recently published in the online journal Communications Earth and Environment.
“It's something you put a lot of hard work into," he said. "You have a nice eureka moment here, and it’s good to see everything is coming together, and others can take a look at it as well."
Dr. Pasek is now in the process of presenting his discovery to the International Mineralogical Association in hopes it is classified as a new mineral.
