Elementary Reactions in Polynuclear Ions and Aqueous Mineral Interfaces: A New Geology

Technical Report · Thu Dec 30 04:00:00 EST 2010

OSTI ID:1056801

Rustad, James R. ^[1]

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1. Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States); The Regents of the University of California, Davis

Since they first puzzled over the geometric regularity of faceted crystals, geologists have been striving for a molecular-level understanding of the processes that control the transformation of earth materials. The relative lack of success in this endeavor can be revealed by asking why, if everyone knows what a molecular biologist is, there is no such corresponding occupation as a molecular geologist. That this should be so is even more surprising considering the vast amount of effort devoted over the 20th century to the determination of thousands of crystal structures of minerals of geological importance. Up through the 1970s every geology department in a major research university had at least one specialist in X-ray mineralogy and crystallography. Roughly contemporaneous with the understanding of plate tectonics, geology had completed a remarkably comprehensive database of the crystal structures of thousands of minerals making up the Earth's crust and the more remote mineral assemblages making up the Earth's mantle. Uncovering the fundamental atomic structures of earth materials should have had the same transformational effect on geology that, for example, protein crystallography had on biology. The most basic and most interesting questions, such as the motions of tectonic plates, the rates of dissolution and weathering of rocks at the earth's surface into primary oxides and clay minerals, the process of replacing and preserving biological materials with minerals on deep time-scales, and the fractionation of isotopes during establishment of the earth's rock record have a molecular component that is no less central or less fascinating than those underpinning biological processes.

• Research Organization: Univ. of California, Davis, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE
• DOE Contract Number: FG02-04ER15498
• OSTI ID: 1056801
• Report Number(s): DOE-ER--15498-1
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

58 GEOSCIENCES