FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Tom Mazanec]

Suppose the first proto-bacterium never formed. How would Earth's minerals differ? Would there be all the ~5,000 mineral species on the planet?

[Peter Lemkin]

[Pete Modreski]

Tom, this interesting question has actually been the subject of a whole series of papers, by Robert M. Hazen of the Geophysical Laboratory of the Carnegie Institution of Washington and then with follow-ups by others. In fact, I was quite surprised when I just checked on this, because his first paper in this topic was published a full 10 years ago (I never would have thought it had been that long ago!):

Hazen RM, Papineau D, Bleeker W, Downs RT, Ferry J, McCoy T, Sverjensky D, Yang H (2008) Mineral evolution. American Mineralogist 93:1693-1720 [pdf]

Much of what he has explored involves the fact that if it had not been for the generation of free oxygen into earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, and crust by photosynthesizing organisms, most of the oxy-compounds that we know as minerals would not exist, and the total number of minerals would probably be more like one thousand than the 5000+ that we have now. You might like to look up & read some of Hazen's papers! Here are several more of these, from 2010,

Hazen RM (2010) The evolution of minerals. Scientific American 3:58-65
Hazen RM and Ferry JM (2010) Mineral evolution: Mineralogy in the fourth dimension. Elements 6(1):9-12 [pdf]
Hazen RM and Eldredge E (2010) Themes and variations in complex systems. Elements 6(1):43-46 [pdf]

And here is a page on his website that list all his publications on this theme:
https://hazen.carnegiescience.edu/publications/mineral-evolution

Cheers, Pete Modreski

[Tom Mazanec]

Would this mean no limestone type caves on a lifeless Earth, the kind with stalactites and stalagmites?

[Pierre Joubert]

[dontgogreen]

[Pierre Joubert]

[dontgogreen]

Hi Pierre, thanks for clarifying. I respect your view completely, and I have to admit that I do not hold an atheistic view either. As someone who teaches geology laboratory courses, I find myself in a strange position in which I am bound to espouse the curriculum regardless of my own viewpoint. One of the commonly-held views in Universities is that if enough scientists or experts agree on something, it must be the case. Regardless of the subject, I reject this notion, however on the topic of "the origin of life" I must admit that I am not well-educated enough to refute scientific theory. One of my concerns is that when we are told of a particular idea or theory, we can only gain a shallow understanding of it, and that we often lack the time, agency, or ability to investigate it deeply. For example, I teach students about the composition of the Earth, and how we can understand it based on the velocity of seismic waves as they pass through materials of various phases. Have I ever directly examined the evidence for this? Of course not, I simply read it in a textbook and took it for granted.

[Duncan Miller]

[James Catmur]

Please can we please stick to minerals, not beliefs?

[Pierre Joubert]

[Tom Mazanec]

[Pierre Joubert]

[Travis Hetsler]

[dontgogreen]

You're going to have this thread shut down if you post deliberately inflammatory remarks, which is a shame because it's an interesting topic. You might edit your remark if you would really like to continue any form of discussion.