Needs and opportunities in mineral evolution research

• DOI: 10.2138/am.2011.3725
• Publication Date: 2011-06-25T20:31:31Z
• Authors: R. M. Hazen; A. Bekker; D. L. Bish; W. Bleeker; R. T. Downs; J. Farquhar; J. M. Ferry; E. S. Grew; A. H. Knoll; D. Papineau; J. P. Ralph; D. A. Sverjensky; J. W. Valley
• Keywords: 550; Philosophy of mineralogy; isotope geochemistry; mineral data; origins of life; 01 natural sciences; database; 0105 earth and related environmental sciences

Progress in understanding mineral evolution, Earth’s changing near-surface mineralogy through time, depends on the availability of detailed information on mineral localities of known ages and geologic settings. A comprehensive database including this information, employing the mindat.org web site as a platform, is now being implemented. This resource will incorporate software to correlate a range of mineral occurrences and properties vs. time, and it will thus facilitate studies of the changing diversity, distribution, associations, and characteristics of individual minerals as well as mineral groups. The Mineral Evolution Database thus holds the prospect of revealing mineralogical records