Mara Murri marks the beginning of the new year with an incredibly nice paper showing the effect of non-hydrostatic stresses on the structure of alpha-quartz. This investigation carried out through ab initio hybrid Hartree–Fock/DFT simulations allows understanding how fundamental rock forming minerals respond to tectonic stresses in the Earth’s interior.

If you are interested the paper can be found online on the webpage of Physics and Chemistry of Minerals