Biominerals and the Environment

Biomineralogy and Environment, IMA working groups

Working group on Biominerals and the Environment

Biominerals: a continuously growing family  

Biominerals are the product of organism’s activity leading to mineral formation within the cellular space or in the space surrounding the organism. In the last decades biominerals have received growing interest from a large interdisciplinary scientific community. Actually, biominerals are known from the geological record to play a pivotal role in biogeochemical cycles of elements. Thus, understanding biomineralization processes in widely different environments helps us to understand environmental changes induced by anthropic activities, as well the as environment resiliency. Moreover, they offer diverse examples to devise useful biobased materials and allow the development of technologies for environmental sustainability.

The working group on Biominerals and Environment was created around the concept that biominerals, in all their diversity of forms, are central to environmental function and human activities in the environment. However, the community of specialist researchers in this topical area currently lack a forum for information exchange to discuss and promote this science. It is the charter of the WG-BME to bridge this gap by rallying a set of enthusiastic leaders from the community that can help promote relevant research, both basic and applied, and foster dissemination more broadly. The members of the WG act on a voluntary basis and participate with a collaborative approach to pursue said aim.

Officers:

Chair: Giovanni De Giudici, Università di Cagliari, Italia

Vice-Chair: Kevin Rosso, Pacific Northwest National Lab. USA.

Vice-Chair: Jurai Maizlan, Univ. Jena, Germany

Secretary: Karen Hudson-Edwards, Exeter Univ. UK.

Members: WGE Members : Pupa Gilbert, Andreas Kappler, Jonathan Lloyd, Francesco Di Benedetto, Lucian Staicu, Juan Liu.

For info write to bio-enviro-office@mineralogy-ima.org

Former working groups: Asbestos

Former working group: Asbestos, IMA working groups

Former IMA Working Group:

ASBESTOS, ASBESTIFORM MINERALS, AND OTHER RESPIRABLE MINERALS THAT POSE POTENTIAL NEGATIVE HEALTH RISKS

Overview: During the IMA Congress in 2018, the establishment of the IMA Working Group on Asbestos, asbestiform minerals, and other respirable minerals that pose potential negative health risks was approved. The charge to the Working Group was to clarify issues around nomenclature and classification for minerals posing a potential health risk by inhalation.  This IMA working group has formally ceased activity in August 2023. Final report is available upon request.

Past Chair: Ann WYLIE (USA)

Past Vice-Chair: Alessandro F. GUALTIERI (ITALY)

Past Secretary: Bryan BANDLI (USA)

Past Members: Giovanni B. Andreozzi (Italy), Mark Bailey (USA), Bruce W. Case (Canada), Giancarlo Della Ventura (Italy), Laurie Glossop (Australia), Mickey Gunter (USA), Don Halterman (USA), Peter Heaney (USA), Erell Léocat (France), Brooke T. Mossman (USA).

Mineral Informatics

IMA working groups, Mineral Informatics

Working group on Mineral Informatics

Informatics, or information science, focuses on all aspects of extracting information from data. The objectives of informatics include assembling and providing access to well-curated data resources, developing and applying advanced analytical and visualization methods, and interpretation of results after applying these methods. Open and reliable data resources that conform to FAIR practices (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable) are an essential pillar of scientific advances through informatics. Mineralogists have long benefitted from open-access data resources such as mindat.org, rruff.info, and earthchem.org, but a significant amount of published and unpublished data on mineral occurrences, compositions, physical properties, and other attributes are not yet available in any open-access platform. Most mineralogical publications do not require new data to be deposited in an open-access form, nor are there uniform standards for reporting such data. 

Accordingly, significant opportunities exist to improve access and reliability of a wide range of mineralogical data, as well as to develop and disseminate analytical and visualization methods to advance mineralogical research. The IMA Working Group on Mineral Informatics has begun a conversation among more than 80 engaged members of the community to identify needs and opportunities, to formulate best practices, to encourage a culture of data sharing among members of the Earth and planetary materials community, and to develop and share new resources. 

If you would like to receive future notices, and perhaps participate in this effort, please email Robert Hazen at rhazen@ciw.edu.

Officers:

Chair: Robert M. Hazen, Carnegie Institution for Science, USA.

Vice-Chair: Sergey V. Krivovichev, Dept. Crystallography, Saint-Petersburg State Univ. Russia.

Vice-Chair: Yan Li, Peking University, China.

Secretary: Shaunna M. Morrison, Carnegie Institution for Science, USA.

Nanomineralogy

IMA working groups, Nanomineralogy

Working group on Nanomineralogy

An exciting and rapidly evolving frontier in Mineralogy

Nano-mineralogy is a rapidly growing field of mineralogy that investigates minerals with at least one dimension of less than 100 nanometers. Mineral nanoparticles and nanominerals have been abundant since Earth’s origin and widely distributed across the Earth system. They often exhibit significantly different physical, chemical, and structural properties from their bulk counterparts. These unique properties can endow mineral nanoparticles and nanominerals with distinct reactivities and roles in biogeochemical processes, including nutrient cycling, carbon sequestration, and contaminant remediation. The burgeon of high-resolution techniques in the last decades has provided a great opportunity for the development of nano-mineralogy. Thus, studying the properties and reactivates of nanominerals and mineral nanoparticles can help us better understand their behaviour within the complex Earth systems and also inspire the development of new materials and technologies with various applications.

The Nano-Mineralogy working group was created to (1) promote collaboration and knowledge exchange among the international mineralogical community to advance research in this exciting field, promote advances in understanding the unique structures, properties, reactivities, and transformation of nanominerals; (2) provide a forum for scientists and researchers to collaborate on the study of nanominerals, sharing information and techniques that can advance our understanding of these important materials;(3) encourage interdisciplinary collaboration on implications and human health impacts of nanominerals.

Officers:

Chair: Juan LIU, College of Environmental Sciences and Engineering, Peking Univ., Beijing, China.

Vice-Chairs: Keisuke FUKUSHI, Institute of Nature and Environmental Technology, Kanazawa University, Japan, and Michael SCHINDLER, Dept. Geological Sciences, Univ. Manitoba, Canada.

Secretary: Alejandro FERNANDEZ-MARTINEZ, ISTerre, Univ. Grenoble Alpes, France.

Members: Michael Hochella, Jr., Edward S. Grew, Jie Xu, F. Marc Michel, Enrico Mugnaioli, Bruno Lanson, Satoshi Utsunimiya, Hiroshi Sakuma, Kideok D. Kwon, Zimeng Wang, Runliang Zhu, Yi Yang, Xiandong Liu, David Singer, Yuefei Xi, Piotr Zarzycki, Quan Wan