Washington, DC—A 15-year study led by Carnegie’s Robert Hazen and Shaunna Morrison details the origins and diversity of every known mineral on Earth, a landmark body of work that will help reconstruct the history of life on our planet, guide the search for new minerals and ore deposits, predict possible characteristics of future life, and aid the search for habitable exoplanets and extraterrestrial life.
For more than a century, thousands of mineralogists from around the globe have carefully documented “mineral species” based on their unique combinations of chemical composition and crystal structure. Carnegie scientists Robert Hazen and Shaunna Morrison