[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Mineral evolution

## Details

**Authors** Hazen, Robert M. and Papineau, Dominic and Bleeker, Wouter and Downs, Robert T. and Ferry, John M. and McCoy, Timothy J. and Sverjensky, Dimitri A. and Yang, Hexiong

**Year** 2008

**Publisher** American Mineralogist

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Geology

**Secondary disciplines** Chemistry, Evolutionary Biology

**Applied** false

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.2138/am.2008.2955) 
10.2138/am.2008.2955

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To describe how the mineralogy of terrestrial planets has changed over geological time through physical, chemical, and biological processes.

### Who or what was studied (sample)

The roughly 4,300 approved mineral species and their paragenetic and temporal records, from pre-stellar dust through meteorites to Earth's crust.

### How they did it (methods)

Historical synthesis organized into three eras and ten stages, tracking mineral diversity at each stage.

### What they found (results)

Mineral diversity rose from about a dozen refractory minerals in pre-stellar dust to about 60 in chondrites, about 250 in altered meteorites, about 1,500 in the crust by 2.5 billion years ago, and more than 4,000 after the Great Oxidation Event, reaching about 4,300 species. The authors attribute this to three mechanisms: separation and concentration of elements, wider ranges of pressure, temperature and chemical activities, and far-from-equilibrium conditions created by life. 57% of approved species are hydrated products, many from weathering in an oxygen-rich environment.

## Commentary

### In short

The authors trace how Earth's minerals grew from a dozen in stellar dust to about 4,300 species, showing that planetary, chemical, and biological processes successively opened new mineral possibilities.

### Response

The staged account of a planet's mineralogy treats the planet as a nested system whose parts change as processes act on them (S), and the causal drivers, including life acting on rock chemistry, are relationships (R). Caveats: the mineral-species classification (a distinction) is taken as given rather than examined, so D is not ticked; the record is based on secondary summaries of the paper and has not been read in full.

**Patterns it shows** S, R

Shows the structure is there

**Added** 2026-10-15

**How to cite this** Hazen, Robert M. and Papineau, Dominic and Bleeker, Wouter and Downs, Robert T. and Ferry, John M. and McCoy, Timothy J. and Sverjensky, Dimitri A. and Yang, Hexiong (2008). Mineral evolution. American Mineralogist.