Mineral Evolution
Co-evolution of mineral and microbe through Precambrian era to Present: Environments and Geological Depositions
Co-Conveners
Yuanfeng Cai, Nanjing University
Navdeep Kaur Dhami, Curtin University
Chuanmin Zhou, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Juan Liu, Peking University
Hailiang Dong, China University of Geosciences
Through the Precambrian era, Earth’s global environmental systems underwent profound changes. These included the rising of oxygen within surficial environments, the increase of abundance of microbial communities and their functional complexity, and large-scale depositions of elements such as Fe, Mn and P etc. Microbial evolution played a pivotal role in driving mineral evolution, fundamentally reshaping Earth’s surface environments. Yet, the processes and mechanisms driving these shifts remain only partly understood and often debated, as much of the primary evidence was obscured or buried during subsequent sedimentary deposition. Understanding the processes and mechanisms of these changes requires concerted efforts of mineralogist, geologists and microbiologists.
We invite contributions from researchers across disciplines — including microbiology, sedimentology, mineralogy, and paleo-environment communities, among others to share perspectives, explore the mineral-microbe co-evolutions, and unravel the enigma behind major geological events such as Banded Iron Formation, great oxygenation events and Neoproterozoic Oxygenation Event etc.
