Minerals are physical objects, rooted in time and formed through complex planetary processes. So why don’t scientists classify them that way? A philosopher and two Earth scientists recently asked that ...

Quartz, diamond, calcite, and pyrite are a few of the most famous mineral “species,” according to traditional systems of classification. Yet, two papers published in American Mineralogist have ...

18th Century Swedish physician, botanist and zoologist Carl von Linné or Carl Linnaeus is today famous as father of modern biology, having introduced the binomial nomenclature wherein every organism ...

The impact of Earth’s geology on life is easy to see, with organisms adapting to environments as different as deserts, mountains, forests, and oceans. The full impact of life on geology, however, can ...