Of the more than 5,000 minerals recognized by geologists, fewer than 100 are thought to constitute 99 percent of the Earth’s crust. Much more than that—over half of all known minerals, in fact—are ...

The first minerals to form in the universe were nanocrystalline diamonds, which condensed from gases ejected when the first generation of stars exploded. Diamonds that crystallize under the extreme ...

Swedish physician, botanist and zoologist Carl von Linné is today famous as the father of binomial nomenclature, a system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts ...

Minerals are the most durable, information-rich objects we can study to understand our planet's origin and evolution. However, the current classification system leaves unanswered questions for ...

A new origins-based system for classifying minerals reveals the huge geochemical imprint that life has left on Earth. It could help us identify other worlds with life too. The impact of Earth’s ...

Minerals are geologic time capsules of the environments in which they form. With the right approach, their mysteries can be cracked open to reveal key features of the ancient Earth or other planets.

As global mining expands to meet growing material demand, the world faces an urgent question: where will the next generation of resources come from? A new study led by Dr. Guochang Xu and Prof.

A system of categorization that reflects not just a mineral's chemistry and crystalline structure, but also the physical, chemical, or biological processes by which it formed, would be capable of ...

CU Boulder philosopher and planetary scientists at Carnegie Institution for Science argue that existing system of mineral classification fails to account for ‘mineral evolution’ Maybe a diamond is ...