An evolutionary system of mineralogy, Part IV: Planetesimal differentiation and impact mineralization (4566 to 4560 Ma)

Morrison, S. M.; Hazen, Robert M.

doi:10.2138/am-2021-7632

Cited by 23 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 366 publications

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“…Future investigations could use mineral natural kinds (Hazen et al, 2019; Hazen et al, 2020; Hazen & Morrison, 2020; Hazen & Morrison, 2021; Morrison & Hazen, 2020; Morrison & Hazen, 2021), which better illustrate natural chemical variations observed in mineral specimens, rather than mineral species; however, these data are not yet fully assembled and are therefore not yet available for study. Another solution is to define the term ‘chemical formula’, which differs from the IMA definition of idealized mineralogical formula and reflects the content of the impurities present in species.…”

Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of symmetry index in minerals

Bermanec

Vidović

Gavryliv

et al. 2023

Geoscience Data Journal

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Crystal structures of minerals are defined by a specific atomic arrangement within the unit‐cell, which follows the laws of symmetry specific to each crystal system. The causes for a mineral to crystallize in a given crystal system have been the subject of many studies showing their dependency on different formation conditions, such as the presence of aqueous fluids, biotic activity and many others. Different attempts have been made to quantify and interpret the information that we can gather from studying crystal symmetry and its distribution in the mineral kingdom. However, these methods are mostly outdated or at least not compatible for use on large datasets available today. Therefore, a revision of symmetry index calculation has been made in accordance with the growing understanding of mineral species and their characteristics. In the gathered data, we observe a gradual but significant decrease in crystal symmetry through the stages of mineral evolution, from the formation of the solar system to modern day. However, this decrease is neither uniform nor linear, which provides further implications for mineral evolution from the viewpoint of crystal symmetry. The temporal distribution of minerals based on the number of essential elements in their chemical formulae and their symmetry index has been calculated and compared to explore their behaviour. Minerals with four to eight essential elements have the lowest average symmetry index, while being the most abundant throughout all stages of mineral evolution. There are many open questions, including those pertaining to whether or not biological activity on Earth has influenced the observed decrease in mineral symmetry through time and whether or not the trajectory of planetary evolution of a geologically active body is one of decreasing mineral symmetry/increasing complexity.

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Section: Future Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of symmetry index in minerals

Bermanec

Vidović

Gavryliv

et al. 2023

Geoscience Data Journal

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“…Structure data for high-pressure minerals at ambient pressure [5,17] cannot be used here because their bond distances represent the present state at ambient pressure but not at the conditions of formation. Many good experimental compression studies are on solid solutions such as bridgmanite-hiroseite, aluminous or ferraluminous bridgmanite, etc.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pressure-Dependent Crystal Radii

Tschauner

2023

Solids

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This article reports the pressure-dependent crystal radii of Mg, Si, Ge, Be, Fe, Ca, Sr, Ba, Al, Ti, Li, Na, K, Cs, and of some rare earths, that is: the major Earth mantle elements, important minor, and some trace elements. Pressure dependencies of O2−, Cl−, and Br− are also reported. It is shown that all examined cation radii vary linearly with pressure. Cation radii obey strict correlations between ionic compressibilities and reference 0 GPa radii, thus reducing previous empirical rules of the influence of valence, ion size, and coordination to a simple formula. Both cation and anion radii are functions of nuclear charge number and a screening function which for anions varies with pressure, and for cations is pressure-independent. The pressure derivative of cation radii and of the anion radii at high pressure depends on electronegativity with power −1.76.

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“…Part IV—Primary achondrite minerals (>4.560 Ga) : Planetesimal formation produced at least 94 primary igneous phases ( 29 ). These processes increased Earth's mineral inventory to 141 documented phases (all found in meteorites) that formed from m = 34 different chemical elements, with as many as eight elements [e.g.…”

Section: Mineral Evolution and Functional Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Open-ended versus bounded evolution: Mineral evolution as a case study

Hazen,

Wong

2024

PNAS Nexus

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To what extent are natural evolving systems limited in their potential diversity (i.e., “bounded”) versus unrestricted (“open-ended”)? Minerals provide a quantitative model evolving system, with well documented increases in mineral diversity through multiple stages of planetary evolution over billions of years. A recent framework that unifies behaviors of both biotic and abiotic evolving systems posits that all such systems are characterized by combinatorial richness subject to selection. In the case of minerals, combinatorial richness derives from the possible combinations of chemical elements coupled with permutations of their formulas’ coefficients. Observed mineral species, which are selected for persistence through deep time, represent a miniscule fraction of all possible element configurations. Furthermore, this model predicts that as planetary systems evolve, stable minerals become an ever-smaller fraction of the “possibility space.” A postulate is that “functional information,” defined as the negative log2 of that fraction, must increase as a system evolves. We have tested this hypothesis for minerals by estimating the fraction of all possible chemical formulas observed from one stage of mineral evolution to the next, based on numbers of different essential elements and the maximum chemical formula complexity at each of 9 chronological stages of mineral evolution. We find a monotonic increase in mineral functional information through these 9 stages—a result consistent with the hypothesis. Furthermore, analysis of the chemical formulas of minerals demonstrates that modern Earth may be approaching the maximum limit of functional information for natural mineral systems—a result demonstrating that mineral evolution is not open ended.

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An evolutionary system of mineralogy, Part IV: Planetesimal differentiation and impact mineralization (4566 to 4560 Ma)

Cited by 23 publications

References 366 publications

Evolution of symmetry index in minerals

Evolution of symmetry index in minerals

Pressure-Dependent Crystal Radii

Open-ended versus bounded evolution: Mineral evolution as a case study

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