A mineral newly approved by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) has been named in recognition of Dr. Maya G. Kopylova, Professor in EOAS and Junior Norman Keevil Chair in Mineral Exploration, celebrating her contributions to diamond research.

Kopylovite was identified by Dr. Nester Korolev of the American Museum of Natural History and colleagues from tiny inclusions preserved inside diamonds from the Sloan kimberlite pipes in the Wyoming Craton, USA. Formed in the upper mantle from a few dozen to about 200 kilometers beneath the surface, it contains titanium and potassium—elements commonly associated with rocks in Earth’s crust—and has been proposed to record the recycling of sediments into the mantle in subduction zones at the top of oceanic crust. 

The mineral is notable not only for what it reveals about Earth’s deep interior, but also for its place in the broader history of mineral nomenclature. A study in 2024 found that only 2.8% of nearly 6,000 mineral names are named after women, making this recognition especially inspiring within the field of mineralogy. Kopylovite is named in honour of Dr. Maya G. Kopylova and her father, Gerzen Kopylov, a Russian physicist, poet and political dissident. Dr. Kopylova leads the Diamond Exploration Laboratory, which conducts petrological and mineralogical investigations of kimberlites, mantle xenoliths, and diamonds to unravel the structure, thermal regime, and processes of the diamond-bearing upper mantle. The lab’s fundamental research in mantle petrology also has direct, practical applications in diamond exploration.

Kopylovite is not the only recently IMA-designated mineral with an EOAS connection. Raudseppite was identified from the Gun claim, southeast of Itsi Lakes in Yukon, Canada, by former Master’s student Mary Macquistan, her supervisor Dr. Lee A. Groat, Professor in EOAS, and their colleagues. Raudseppite is named after Dr. Mati Raudsepp, who served for more than three decades as Director of the Electron Microbeam/X-Ray Diffraction Facility and held appointments as Research Associate and Honorary Professor in EOAS. Through his world-class expertise in quantitative X-ray powder diffraction, Dr. Raudsepp supported both fundamental research and industry needs and trained generations of graduate students in data collection and analysis.