Tsunamiet

Tsunamiet is a fictional mineral term used in geoscience education and speculative fiction to illustrate rapid mineral precipitation in tsunami-related deposits. The name combines the word tsunami with the -ite suffix common to mineral names, signaling a mineral formed by high-energy depositional processes.

In the fictional account, tsunamiet is described as a glassy, hydrated silicate with a conchoidal fracture and a pale to grayish color, its appearance influenced by dissolved salts and sedimentary materials mixed during a surge. It is said to form when seawater laden with silica, clays, and other minerals experiences rapid cooling and quenching as it interacts with the shoreface and backwash zones, precipitating minerals faster than diagenetic processes can rearrange them. The exact mineralogical composition is varied in stories, but tsunamiet is often portrayed as including microstructures that record brief high-energy intervals.

In practice, tsunamiet appears in teaching examples about high-energy sedimentology and diagenesis, helping students reason about abrupt burial, transport, and chemical alteration in coastal settings. It may also be used in worldbuilding to convey geologic realism in fictional coastal regions.

See also: tsunami deposits, high-energy sedimentology, mineralogy, sedimentary diagenesis.