Sergey Krivovichev and Edward Grew (contact: s.krivovichev@spbu.ru)

Mineral evolution provides a new perspective on mineralogical science by including time in the consideration of the rapidly accumulating data on minerals, their composition, crystal structure, properties and occurrences on Earth and other planetary bodies. New modes of thinking are needed in order to arrange the data into coherent frameworks emphasizing changes in mineral diversity, composition and structural complexity with time. Approaching mineral diversity as a system amenable to quantitative treatment is one of the emerging fields in mineralogy, and has been attracting considerable interest and attention. This session will be devoted to the review of the current trends in these non-traditional, yet very promising fields of mineralogical sciences.

The Keynote speaker will be Robert M. Hazen (Geophysical Laboratory, Carnegie Institution, Washington D.C., USA)