The mission of the Department of Mineral Sciences is to study the origin and evolution of the Earth and Solar System, Earth processes and their products, and the effects of geologic and meteoritic phenomena on Earth's atmosphere and biosphere. We disseminate the results of our research both to the scientific community through scholarly publications and to the public through exhibits, electronic media, and public lectures. We have in our care premier research collections of minerals, meteorites, rocks, ores, and volcano data/images. We strive to maximize their availability to the scientific community, and we use specimens from these collections to best effect in our own research and exhibits.
Division of Meteorites
Meteorites provide both our best clues to the early formation of the Solar System and ground truth for comparison to results of missions to Mars, asteroids and comets. In the Division of Meteorites, researchers exploit the full potential of meteorites to understand processes ranging from condensation in the solar nebula through differentiation of asteroids to volcanological processes operating on Mars. At the center of all of this research are meteorites in the U.S. National Meteorite Collection and those collected by the U.S. Antarctic Meteorite Program. more...
Division of Mineralogy
Minerals are the basic geological building blocks of the solid Earth and Solar System; they are the natural chemical compounds that controlled and recorded the processes that formed the Earth and planets, and continue to do so today. The detailed chemical compositions and atomic structures of individual mineral grains, combined with the particular assemblages and textures of mineral crystals (i.e. rocks) are the basic clues used by geologists to understand the earth and its history. Deciphering these mineralogical clues depends upon a fundamental knowledge of the atomic structures and behaviors of minerals under a wide range of temperatures, pressures and compositions, i.e. to know Earth you must first know her minerals. Building this comprehensive understanding of the nature and behavior of minerals has traditionally been the role of mineralogists.
Mineralogy has branched in many directions but remains a point of intersection for many research fields within and outside of geology. Some of the exciting areas of current mineralogical research, for example, include: mineral interactions with the atmosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere (environmental mineralogy), including reactions at mineral surfaces, weathering processes, and soil formation; investigations of minerals for use as novel industrial materials or as analogues of synthetic materials such as cement and ceramics; studies of mineral behaviors at high temperatures and pressures; interactions between biological systems and minerals; minerals and human health effects; and understanding detailed growth histories of mineral crystals.
The Department of Mineral Sciences has a rich tradition of mineralogical research, catalyzed in large part by its world class collection of more than 350,000 minerals and gems, and state-of-the-art laboratories. Over the past several decades, mineralogists in our department (Dr. Pete Dunn, now retired, in particular) have described more than a hundred new minerals and conducted detailed analytical and crystallographic studies on many others. The mineralogical research performed in our department also reflects a strong interdisciplinary interest in minerals, with studies published that include microbiologists, material scientists, sedimentologists, chemists, meteoriticists and physicists as collaborators. more...
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