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Biomineralization

¹ Department of Integrative Biology and Museum of Paleontology, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-3140

The first 300 words of the full text of this article appear below.

BIOMINERALIZATION,

Patricia M. Dove, James J. De Yoro, and Steve Weiner (Eds.), 2003, Reviews in Mineralogy and Geochemistry, Vol. 54, Mineralogical Society of America, Washington, D.C., USA, xiii + 381 p. (Paperback, US $36.00) ISBN:093995066-9.

Biomineralization continues to develop as one of the most creative and diverse interdisciplinary fields of science. Although chemists, biologists, paleontologists, earth scientists, and materials scientists often have pursued their own questions in disciplinary isolation, some of the most exciting advances in biomineralization have occurred when the disparate disciplines have set aside their traditional differences in the pursuit of common questions. The argument for bridging separate disciplinary tracks is important to the progress of the field.

This volume is the most recent and one of the most successful attempts to summarize fundamental principles, processes, and new research questions for scientists entering the field. Although it is written with a strong earth-science perspective, the editors did an excellent job of selecting contributors from the range of relevant disciplines. In this review, I consider the organization and scope of the volume, the major contributions of each chapter, the extent to which the volume succeeds in posing new questions, the utility of the volume as an instructional resource, and some comparisons with another recent review of the topic.

The immediate impetus for producing the volume was a two-day short course held prior to the AGU meeting in San Francisco in December 2003. The editors define a clear set of objectives, and it is apparent that they charged contributors with stating their scope and objectives, focusing on major processes rather than taxon-specific details, and identifying challenging questions and new frontiers. Although readers will have to mine the contributions for new ideas and questions, the book targets earth scientists entering the field. Some of the chapters are particularly good at demonstrating the . . . [Full Text of this Article]