Reply to the discussion of Galuskin and Galuskina (2023) “Evidence of the anthropogenic origin of the ‘Carmel sapphire’ with enigmatic super-reduced minerals” by Griffin et al. (2023)

Abstract

At the beginning of their discussion, Griffin et al. (2023) thank us for our detailed investigation of corundum aggregates from Carmel Mt, Northern Israel, which, in their opinion, is “a useful supplement” to their previous publications. We would also like to thank Griffin et al., whose denial of the existence of ‘white breccia’ (corundum angular fragments of different size in white cement) simplifies our defence of our position. In our paper (Galuskin and Galuskina, 2023) we provide mineralogical evidence that ‘Carmel sapphire’ has an anthropogenic genesis based on the study of ‘white breccia’, which consists of the waste of electrocorundum (fused alumina, refractory abrasive material) production. It seems if there is no ‘white breccia’, then our evidence of the anthropogenic genesis of Carmel sapphire does not matter. However Griffin et al. (2019a) were the first to use the term ‘white breccia’. Both in their scientific publications and in the reporting documents of the Shefa Yamim exploration company, there are images of ‘white breccia’ with Carmel sapphire or corundum grains with a white coating (Xiong et al., 2017; Griffin et al., 2021a; Galuskin and Galuskina, 2023, figure S9, supplementary materials). At this point, we can close the discussion with two brief conclusions: (1) Griffin et al. (2023) debate plenty of secondary issues that divert attention from the main object, ‘white breccia’, which is key to solving the problem of Carmel sapphire genesis; (2) ‘white breccia’ (in the form of individual samples) exists and consists of the waste of electrocorundum production. However we decided that readers can draw their own conclusions after reading our paper (Galuskin and Galuskina, 2023) and the discussion connected with it; we answer most of the remarks of Griffin et al. (2023) below.