Minerals are physical objects, rooted in time and formed through complex planetary processes. So why don’t scientists classify them that way? A philosopher and two Earth scientists recently asked that ...

Washington, DC--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 ...

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.

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American Talc - Gypsum - Calcite - Fluorite - Apatite ...

If every mineral tells a story, then geologists now have their equivalent of The Arabian Nights. For the first time, scientists have cataloged every different way that every known mineral can form and ...

18th Century Swedish physician, botanist and zoologist Carl von Linné or Carl Linnaeus is today famous as father of modern biology, having introduced the binomial nomenclature wherein every organism ...

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 ...

AZtecGeo is a geoscience-dedicated user profile for particle analysis software AZtecFeature, designed to guide the automated quantification of mineral morphology and composition across large samples.

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 ...