Edscottite
Iron carbide Fe₅C₂ — known from smelting for decades but only confirmed in nature in 2019, inside a meteorite.
Intro adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).
Edscottite is an IMA-recognized mineral species in the organic mineral class, with the chemical formula Fe₅C₂.
It crystallizes in the monoclinic crystal system (space group C2/c).
Key properties: specific gravity 7.62.
IMA symbol Est, IMA status: approved, named in 2019.
Found in a Ni-rich ataxite iron meteorite belonging to subgroup sLH of the IAB complex (Low-Au, High-Ni subgroup).
It is found associated with Low-Ni iron (kamacite), taenite, nickelphosphide (Ni-dominant schreibersite), cohenite.
The mineral was named to honor Edward (Ed) R.D. Scott (b. 1947), a pioneering cosmochemist at the University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, for his seminal contributions to research on meteorites.