hydrofluoric
HY-droh-FLOOR-ik
Definition
Relating to or derived from hydrogen fluoride, specifically referring to a highly corrosive acid used in laboratory settings to dissolve rock.
Etymology
The word is a chemical compound term formed by combining 'hydro-' (from Greek 'hydōr', meaning water) with 'fluoric' (derived from the Latin 'fluor', meaning flow or flux, relating to the mineral fluorspar from which it was extracted).
In the news
The article describes hydrofluoric acid as a standard tool used by scientists to dissolve away rock to recover fossils, noting that it is ineffective for the specific fossils found in this study.
Scientists looked inside a rock pellet smaller than a grain of rice and found a 445-million-year-old world preserved within it — more than 20 microscopic marine organisms, including a species never seen before
Read the full article ↗ScienceBlog.com