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Biomineralization. Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, Volume 54. PATRICIA M. DOVE, JAMES J. DE YOREO, AND STEVE WEINER, EDITORS. Pp. 381. 2003. Price: $36.00 MSA, GS, and CMS members $27.00.

Biomineralization has become a field unto itself, important to geologists of many stripes beyond traditional mineralogists and paleontologists, as this timely volume attests. Card-carrying paleontologists, who investigate the remarkable mineralized creatures and contributed a time scale for evolution and geology, have been joined by many other scientists, especially those whose prime focus is on biogeochemistry. Rightly, the Mineralogical Society of America and the Geochemical Society have joined to produce this compendium, a major contribution to the future of their fields, and to earth sciences in general. The expansion of interests to a wider scientific audience is amply expressed by the diversity of the papers, the authors and their affiliations, and all the chapters have lengthy bibliographies.

I recommend everyone read the introductory chapter by Weiner and Dove. It is a masterful overview of the biological processes discovered in studies over the decades on biomineralization, and why biomineralization is making important contributions today toward our understandings of the earth with its diversity of living forms. It is a chapter that brings up to date the book On Biomineralization (Oxford University Press, 1989) that Weiner co-authored with Heinz Lowenstam. That groundbreaking book melded details from the diversity of biominerals to the vast differences of mineralizing forms and their diverse strategies of biomineralization. This chapter successfully summarizes the new reach of biomineralization and exposes some of the not-quite-finished stories on specific mineralizing species. Further, and not insignificantly, the chapter emphasizes what could enhance our understanding of the basic reasons for life and the contributions of life forms to our planet.

"Biomineralization, . . . [Full Text of this Article]