et al. 2003). Study of these minerals is important for understanding the mobility of uranium around mining sites, as well as designing successful strategies for the storage of nuclear weapons and the containment of nuclear waste. Biographic sketch Paulscherrerite is named in recognition of the vital contributions to mineralogy and nuclear physics of Swiss physicist Paul Scherrer (1890–1969). While studying at the University of Göttingen in 1916, he and Peter Debye, Scherrer’s mentor and eventual Nobel Prize winner, developed the powder diffraction theory (the Scherrer equation) and designed the Debye-Scherrer X-ray powder diffraction camera. By 1920, Scherrer had become interested in nuclear physics, was appointed to a professorship at the ETH Zürich, and was involved in the early development of solid-state physics, nuclear physics, and electronics. He was named President of the Swiss Study Commission for Atomic Energy in 1946 and took part in establishing CERN near Geneva in 1954 (Hephaestus, 2011). Since 1988, the Paul Scherrer Institute has been the largest Swiss national research institute, active in elementary particle physics, material sciences, and nuclear and non-nuclear energy research. The name for the mineral was proposed by Joel Brugger, a native of Switzerland, currently a QEII fellow at the University of Adelaide, Australia (MMSN, 2011). See also List of minerals named after people References Uranium(VI) minerals Monoclinic minerals