The chapters contributed to the volume recognize the important and diverse contributions of mineralogy to the valorization, characterization, interpretation and conservation of cultural heritage. The book focuses on examples of materials and methodological issues rather than technical/analytical details. We have attempted to deal with the cultural heritage materials in chronological order of their technological developments, to relate them to past human activities, and to highlight unresolved problems in need of investigation.

Abstract This volume is intended to provide a useful reference source and a picture of the present status of the chemistry, geochemistry and mineralogy of redox-reactive materials. Although in this volume some progress has been made in this direction, the aim is by no means achieved, especially with this extremely broad, diverse and vibrant area of research.

Abstract This volume accompanies an EMU School intended to bring contemporary research on mineral reaction kinetics to the attention of young researchers and to put it into the context of recent developments in related disciplines. A selection of topics, methods and concepts, which the contributors deem currently most relevant and instructive, is presented.

Abstract The state of the art in the field of mineral fibres is illustrated and discussed here, with a multidisciplinary approach taking into account all the different scientific strands (biology, chemistry, epidemiology, mineralogy, physics, toxicology etc.). The different views have been considered in an attempt to assemble the pieces of the jigsaw and to present the reader with an up-to-date and complete picture.

At the dawn of structural crystallography, Walther Friedrich, Paul Knipping and Max von Laue carried out the first experiments and developed the theory of X-ray diffraction. From the early days, when even the simpler inorganic structures filled an entire PhD study, structural crystallography evolved at its own pace and found new partners in chemistry, physics, materials science, biology and other fields of physical sciences. Both morphological and structural crystallography, however, have remained as important instruments in the mineralogist’s toolbox until today. Efforts to enhance the existing instrumentation, to improve our understanding of the theory of diffraction, to study nanoparticulate or poorly ordered materials, and to master large, complex structures continue in all fields of physical sciences. Mineralogy can thus use the fruits of this labour and include them in its toolbox.

Abstract The school associated with this volume was inspired by the recent advances in our understanding of the nature and evolution of our Solar System that have come from the missions to study and sample asteroids and comets, and the very successful Mars orbiters and landers. At the same time our horizons have expanded greatly with the discovery of extrasolar protoplanetary disks, planets and planetary systems by space telescopes. The continued success of such telescopic and robotic exploration requires a supply of highly skilled people and so one of the goals of the Glasgow school was to help build a community of early-career planetary scientists and space engineers.

Abstract In this edition of Introduction to the Rock-Forming Minerals, most of the commonly occurring minerals of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks are discussed in terms of structure, chemistry, optical and other physical properties, distinguishing features and paragenesis. Important correlations between these aspects of mineralogy are emphasized wherever possible. The content of each section has been updated where needed in the light of published research over the 21 years between editions. Tables of over 200 chemical analyses and formulae are included and a number of older entries have been replaced by more recent examples. Major new features include: Entirely new views of crystal structures in perspective using CrystalMaker colour images; CrystalViewer interactive CD with >100 mineral structures included; Over 60 colour photographs of minerals in thin sections of rocks under the petrological microscope; Considerably expanded treatment of feldspar and zeolite minerals; Mineral identification table based on birefringence and listing other properties; and Colour strip with appropriate interference colours and birefringences for the main rock-forming minerals. This book will be useful to undergraduate students of mineralogy, petrology and geochemistry, especially those at third or fourth year, engaged in more advanced courses or specialized projects, and also as a reference work for students for ‘Masters’ degrees by taught courses or research. For doctorate students, and research workers in the Earth Sciences as well as those in Materials Science and other related disciplines, this work can be useful as a condensed version of the very extensive treatment presented in the volumes of the DHZ Series ‘ Rock-Forming Minerals ’, second edition.

Abstract The first transmission electron microscope (TEM) was built in the 1930s for which the inventor Ernst Ruska received a Nobel prize for Physics in 1986. Since those early years, Mineralogy has played an important role in the development of TEM methods and technology. In the beginning, early specimens included natural samples of biomineralization (diatoms in 1937), and later, some of the larger unit cells and microstructures of minerals were accessible to the low-resolution microscopes of that time (see chapter 5, for example). One of the main drives for the development of the electron microscope was its application in biology and medicine. Mineralogy would rejoin with biology at a time closer to the new millennium as interest in biogeochemistry became more prevalent (chapters 10 and 11). Through the following decades, the limitations of specimen thickness, contamination, beam damage and resolution were progressively overcome. In the 1970s, there were a few major influences on the application of TEM to minerals: the increase of resolution to the point of direct observation of mineral structures (see chapter 4 for minerals about which important discoveries were made at this time), the development of the ion mill to thin crystals to electron transparency, and the increase in funding for these new expensive machines to tackle problems such as lunar and extraterrestrial petrology (chapter 2). This decade also saw the increase in high-voltage technology that decreased the wavelength of electrons, and thus, increased their resolving power. We also saw the principles developed in 'Materials Science' being applied to minerals. Students of microscopy would probably be trained by both mineral crystallographers (to understand mineral structures) and Materials Science/Physics microscopists (to understand microstructures) (see chapters 3 and 8 for modern studies of defect microstructures and nonstoichiometery). Developing in parallel with the TEM was the dedicated scanning TEM (STEM). This technology would have a slower trajectory before establishing its importance in Materials Science, but has yet to be fully applied to mineralogy (see chapter 1 for a few examples of STEM applications). In the 1980s, universities were purchasing high-end TEMs for both Materials Science and Mineralogy. In several universities, Earth Science departments obtained scopes that were either dedicated to their own research or used for the university as a whole. Thus, the study of geological materials became more common. This was aided by the improvement of goniometric stages allowing orientation of samples, removing the need for the operator to pre-select a grain with adequate orientation. Two major analytical tools became available at this time: energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) and electron energy-loss spectroscopy (EELS) (see chapter 1). Due to simpler implementation and interpretation, EDX rapidly became an integral tool in mineralogical investigations, whereas EELS, with its more stringent thickness requirements, more complicated interpretation, and more expensive instrumentation, would increase slowly in terms of its mineralogical applications. EDX allowed mineralogists to extend the acquisition of quantitative analyses below the micrometer threshold of the electron microprobe. This opened up the field of investigations into fine-grained materials such as sedimentary and low-temperature metamorphic rocks (chapters 6 and 7). The 1980s were a good time to buy a microscope, because the technology had stabilized and improvements in the 1990s were mainly in the area of computerization of the microscopy interface. However, the Schottky Field Emission gun became increasingly common during the 1990s, which did improve the STEM imaging capability and the spatial resolution of chemical analyses of conventional TEMs. In this decade, we began to see an increase in applications of TEM to environmental materials, biominerals, and the use of EELS to determine valence states of transition elements and produce energy-filtered compositional images. An important development in sample preparation and characterization came to fruition at this time through the methods of focused ion beam and dual beam instrumentation (these methods are not covered in this book, however). These tools enabled researchers to target specific areas for extraction and preparation into thin foils for TEM observation. They have also become important characterization instruments in their own right as nanoscale 3D reconstruction investigations of solids have proven valuable. The new millennium brought a breakthrough in imaging technology through the realization of aberration correctors on both conventional TEMs and dedicated STEMs which were now being remarketed. The resolution of electron microscopes, which had improved only slowly over the previous two decades, suddenly broke the 1Ångstrom mark — we truly entered the picometer era. This came at the time when interest in nanoparticles in Materials Science, Chemistry and Physics was exploding. Parallel to that was the understanding of the effects of nanosized particles on the environment (chapter 9) and in health (for good and bad reasons). In addition, tomography techniques were developed to bring out the third dimension texturally and chemically (see chapter 11). Added to this, environmental TEMs enabled the observation of in situ reactions under changing environments. So now in the 2010s, we are witnessing the push for the improvement of detectors for imaging (direct detection of electrons) and X-rays (silicon drift detectors and annular high solid-angle of collection detectors), the development of new support materials (e.g. graphene) and liquid cells for TEMs. Most of these new technologies have not yet been applied to mineralogical problems but we hope they will be in the near future. A new application using older technology is found in scanned precession electron diffraction (SPED). This technique can: (1) decrease the dynamical behaviour of electron diffraction, and thus, allow for the use of diffraction intensities for ab initio structure determination of nanocrystals; and (2) automatically produce orientation maps at the nanoscale. SPED is a recent development that has seen immediate applications to mineralogy.

Abstract In Earth Sciences and Cultural Heritage Science we can only understand the formation of the ‘objects’ if they are well characterized. Optical observation, including optical microscopy, is still the primary tool and is essential in obtaining a preliminary, qualitative determination of an object, to determine the relations between it and other objects, and to place it in a general context. Most of the time, however, optical observations are insufficient. Spectroscopic methods are the second “set of eyes” used to gain greater insight into these objects and to use physical chemistry, if applicable, to derive the mechanisms of formation. Spectroscopic methods are numerous and have been described in a previous volume (6) in the EMU Notes in Mineralogy series, edited by A. Beran & E. Libowitzky (2004). In chapter 7 of that volume, Raman spectroscopy was addressed by Nasdala et al. (2004). Though that volume provides a very useful means to gain a general understanding of the contribution of each spectroscopy to mineralogy, no details of the theory, instrumentation and applications to the different types of objects could be provided. In the past eight years, there have been many improvements in the instrumentation which makes Raman spectroscopy a versatile technique used in many Earth Science and Cultural Heritage laboratories and so it appeared appropriate to have a school and a book dedicated to Raman Spectroscopy alone. Four main topics are addressed here: (1) Theory: in Chapter 1, dedicated to the Raman effect, in Chapter 4, dealing with the modelling of Raman spectra, in Chapter 2 to the links between fluorescence and Raman spectroscopy, in Chapter 10 for the exploitation of Raman spectra of minerals at high pressure and temperature, and in Chapter 12 for the rationale behind Raman spectra of graphitic carbon compounds; the basic theory of the instrumentation is developed in Chapter 3. (2) Methodology including the instrumentation: in Chapter 3 and the Raman data analysis in Chapter 5. (3) Experimental aspects: for the investigation of Raman spectra at high pressure and temperature using diamond anvil cells for minerals (Chapter 10) and geological fluids (Chapter 7) and with fused silica capillary for fluids (Chapter 6). (4) Application: to different types of objects: geological fluids (Chapter 8), silicate glasses and melts (Chapter 9), biogeology and astrobiology (Chapter 11), graphitic carbons (Chapter 12), gemmology with a link with fluorescence spectroscopy (Chapter 13), and Cultural Heritage (Chapter 14). A given chapter may address several topics, as it is impossible to obtain relevant information from the Raman study of a given object without considering the theory for the interpretation of the spectra, or instrumental set-up including special cells, or handling raw spectra. It is also clear that the whole theory could not be developed thoroughly with all the details as it deals with quantum mechanics and group theory. This would require at least two further volumes! Thus, chapters focused on the theoretical aspects are written with the aim of giving the main steps and the results obtained from the theory and how theory can be used for the interpretation of Raman spectra. Readers who want to know the details of the theory and their associated calculations should consult specialized textbooks or publications which are referred to in the chapters hereafter.

Abstract In 1997, the European Mineralogical Union (EMU) began organizing a series of Short Courses (‘Schools’) with the associated publication of a series of review volumes (the ‘EMU Notes in Mineralogy’) on topics of interest to mineral scientists. The second School was held in Budapest in May 2000, along with the publication of Volume 2 of the Notes, on the then emerging subject of Environmental Mineralogy. This volume (edited by D.J. Vaughan and R.A. Wogelius) was well received and has sold well in the 12 years since it appeared (such that very few copies remain available for purchase). Given the continuing demand for books in this field, the President and Council of EMU approached the editors and asked them to consider several options. These were: (1) simply to reprint the original volume; (2) to produce a new volume using the original chapter authors as far as possible; or (3) to organize a new School and accompanying volume. It was decided to take the second of these options and to publish what might be thought of as a ‘second edition’, although the extensive revisions undertaken in what we have entitled Environmental Mineralogy II justify regarding it as a new book, and hence in making it ‘Volume 13’ of the Notes. The layout and organization of this new book follow closely that used in the old volume. I was delighted to find that the great majority of contributors to the earlier volume were keen to take on the job of producing a new, up-to-date chapter on their chosen subject. Again, therefore, the book consists of 11 chapters, eight of which retain the same authors, and two of which have added one author (Kevin Taylor joins Andy Aplin for Chapter 4, and Kath Morris joins Charles Curtis for Chapter 9). In the case of Chapter 3, the previous authors are no longer actively involved in the area of soil science, and the challenge of that topic area has been ably taken up by David Manning. All of the chapters were subject to external peer review and I wish to thank Nick Bryan, Linda Campbell, Hugh Coe, Ian Freestone, Barry Johnson, Francis Livens, Jon Lloyd, Richard Pattrick, Claire Robinson, Eva Valsami-Jones and Dave Wray for their help with this important process. At the same time, it should be emphasized that any errors and imperfections that remain in this volume are solely the responsibility of the authors and editors.

Abstract On the surface of the Earth, the intermingling of water and minerals gives rise to a diverse suite of reactions that determine the purity of water we drink, the fate of contaminants we emit, and the composition of minerals and biominerals that we use to interpret past environmental conditions from the sediment archive. Human societies have ubiquitous exposure to the outcome of these mineral—water reactions. Understanding in detail the ion partitioning in mineral—water interactions is of fundamental importance to geochemical studies and ultimately to society. The solid-solution properties of minerals are a significant part of the complexity, and also the importance, of these ion-partitioning reactions. Natural minerals always contain a certain proportion of trace elements in solid solution. These trace elements, precisely because of their rarity, often have a disproportionately large impact on living organisms as is the case for familiar toxic metals such as As and Cd. A clear understanding of ion partitioning behaviour is therefore essential for environmental objectives such as scavenging heavy metals from solution, remediating contamination in soils, or ensuring safe, long-term storage of anthropogenic CO2 or radionuclides in geological reservoirs. Materials science has also taken a new look at the role of trace-element and ion partitioning in regulating biomineralization. Finally, the last several decades have seen a surge in interest in reconstructing past climate and environmental conditions from the sediment archive. An accurate interpretation of ion partitioning is essential to the correct interpretation of records from diverse systems like stalagmites, corals, or shells of marine foraminifera. Given this wide range of applications for ion partitioning, it is fortunate that theoretical and thermodynamic frameworks for modelling ion partitioning have advanced significantly in the last decade. We believe that it is an opportune time to convene experts on ion partitioning from a range of perspectives, from theoretical to applied, to exchange knowledge across these topics and through this exchange, maximize the advances that have been made in the discipline. We are pleased to be able to convene these experts in person, at the European Mineralogical School in Oviedo in June 2010 to share these advances with each other and with the next generation of geochemists. It is our hope that this book will serve most crucially as a bridge through which researchers in one aspect of ion partitioning will be able to productively venture into complementary systems and models to better solve their research goals and perhaps be inspired with new research questions.

Abstract This volume covers the topics related to the 13th EMU School ‘Layered Mineral Structures and their Application in Advanced Technologies’. All of the selected topics, the school, and this volume are thus aimed at providing an in-depth knowledge of the complex field of layered materials, with an attempt to address several fundamental aspects, which range from crystal chemistry and structure to layer packing disorder, from surface properties to the description of the most advanced experimental techniques useful in the characterization of layered materials. Layered materials, because of their particular atomic arrangement, are commonly characterized by physical and chemical properties of great interest in numerous technological and environmental processes and applications, as better detailed in the body of this volume. Most of these properties play a significant role in Earth sciences, environmental sciences, technology, biotechnology, material sciences and many other scientific areas. The surface properties of layered materials control important interaction processes, such as coagulation, aggregation, sedimentation, filtration, catalysis and ionic transport in porous media. Layered minerals also control many aspects of Earth's rheology, i.e. the movement of geological masses, at least as far down as the lower crust. Given this frameset, it should be no surprise that the extremely large field of investigation of these materials can, and in most of the cases must, be approached from several different viewpoints. However, providing full coverage of the immense literature devoted to all the topics above may be impractical, if not impossible.

Abstract The properties of matter at extreme length scales and the respective processes can differ markedly from the properties and processes at length scales directly accessible to human observation. This scale-dependent behaviour is possible in both directions; towards very large and very small scales. Scientists explore the frontiers of these extreme length scales in an effort to gain insight into yet unknown properties and processes. While the exploration of larger scales has been established since the Renaissance era, a comprehensive investigation of small scales was impeded by the limitations of optical microscopy. These imitations were overcome in the 20th century. Since then, a continuous series of developments in analytical power has taken place. Today these developments allow studies of properties and processes even at the molecular or atomic scale (often referred to as nanoscience). These modern nanoscientific possibilities have triggered new innovative projects in geosciences, providing fascinating insights into small scales. Therefore, nanogeoscience has become a very important geoscientific subdiscipline.

Abstract The use of minerals by man is as old as the human race. In fact the advancement of human civilization has been intimately associated with the exploitation of raw materials. It is not by chance that the distinction of the main historical eras is based on the type of raw materials used. Hence the passage from the Paleolithic and Neolithic Age to the Bronze Age is characterized by the introduction of basic metals, mainly copper, zinc and tin, to human activities and the Iron Age was marked by the introduction of iron. Since then the use of metals has increased and culminated in the industrial revolution in the mid-eighteenth century which marked the onset of the industrial age in the western world. However, during the past 50 years, although metals were equally important to western economies as they had been previously, the amount of metals extracted annually in western countries has decreased significantly and metal mining activity shifted mainly to third world countries (in Africa, South America, Asia) and Australia, due to economic and environmental constraints. At the same time the role of industrial minerals has become increasingly important for the western economies and today, in developed EU countries, the production of industrial minerals has surpassed by far the production of metals. In some EU countries, metal mining activities have stopped completely. The importance of industrial minerals is expected to increase further in the future.

Abstract Extreme conditions and their effects on matter and materials are currently fashionable topics in modern science. Perhaps the fascination derives from the unimaginable dimensions that grab our attention and push the boundaries of our imagination. Imagine the pressures in extremely dense neutron stars where electrons and protons are fused together and atoms collapse to the density of an atomic nucleus; imagine temperatures of thousands of degrees Kelvin at the solar surface, or multimegabar and terapascal pressures deep within the interior of our planets. But even a simple droplet of water represents an extreme environment when it comes into contact with an otherwise stable crystal of rock salt, causing the crystal to dissolve as external conditions are drastically changed. We have an inherent desire to understand these diverse kinds of phenomena in nature, the mechanisms of the material changes involved, as well as the extreme conditions which are becoming increasingly demanded to achieve the extraordinary performance of new engineering materials. This rapidly evolving area of science is necessarily interdisciplinary, as it combines fundamental physics, chemistry and biology with geoplanetary and materials science, in addition to increasingly becoming one of the keys to engineering and technology aimed at process optimisation. Current experimental methods permit materials to be studied at pressures of several megabars, temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees Kelvin, and to achieve magnetic fields of several thousand teslas. Moreover, the rapid surge in computer technology has, in turn, permitted the solution of many previously intractable problems, and now even allows the behaviour of matter to be predicted far beyond the range of conditions currently accessible to experimentation. Previously unknown phenomena such as the formation of new phases, new forms of electronic and magnetic order, melting, atomic and electronic excitation, ionisation or the formation of a plasma state might result from exposing matter to extreme conditions well beyond those which were characteristic of the equilibria at the time of formation. With this volume of EMU Notes in Mineralogy we have endeavoured to provide up-to-date reviews of our understanding of the behaviour of minerals and geomaterials at exterior conditions that are sufficiently extreme to induce changes. In total 18 chapters reflect the diversity of this theme, but also demonstrate how strongly interdisciplinary this domain of modern mineralogy has become, bringing together physicists, chemists and geologists as well as experimentalists and computer scientists. The present volume contains the contributions of the lectures presented at the 7th EMU School, held at the University of Heidelberg from June 19 to June 25, 2005.

Abstract The first response to the title of this book is often 'What is a phoscorite?'. The exact definition and characteristics of phoscorite are discussed in some detail in Chapter 2 and were the subject of varying opinions amongst the authors of this and other chapters. We nicknamed the book 'the dark side of carbonatites', which covers it nicely. Phoscorites are dark, often very handsome, sometimes economically valuable, magnetite-apatite-silicate rocks, almost always associated with carbonatite. They are key to understanding the longstanding question of how carbonate and carbonate-bearing magmas rise to the crust and the Earth's surface. Despite this, they have been given little attention; a search on geological literature databases will produce thousands of references to carbonatite (up to 4125 on Georef) but not more than thirty references to phoscorite. This book goes some way to redress this balance. Over the last ten years many European and North American scientists have studied Kola rocks in collaboration with Russian colleagues. The idea for this book came from one such project funded by the European organisation, INTAS (Grant No 97-0722). The Kola Peninsula, Russia, is one of the outstanding areas in the World for the concentration and economic importance of alkaline rocks. However, Russian work on the Kola complexes is still relatively

Abstract Spectroscopic methods provide information about the local structure of minerals. The methods do not depend on long-range periodicity or crystallinity. The geometric arrangement of atoms in a mineral phase is only one aspect of its constitution. Its vibrational characteristic, electronic structure and magnetic properties are of greatest importance when we consider the behaviour of minerals in dynamic processes. The characterisation of the structural and physico-chemical properties of a mineral requires the application of several complementary spectroscopic techniques. However, it is one of the main aims of this School to demonstrate that different spectroscopic methods work on the same basic principles. Spectroscopic techniques represent an extremely rapidly evolving area of mineralogy and many recent research efforts are similar to those in materials science, solid state physics and chemistry. Applications to different materials of geoscientific relevance have expanded by the development of microspectroscopic techniques and by in situ measurements at low- to high-temperature and high-pressure conditions.

Abstract This is the first volume in this series dealing with a petrological subject and contains the contributions of the lectures given at the 5th School of the European Mineralogical Union (EMU) on “Ultrahigh Pressure Metamorphism” held in Budapest from 21 to 25 July 2003. The topic of UHPM was selected because this extreme type of metamorphism, initially considered as a petrographic oddity by the geologic community, has now become recognised as a normal feature of continental plate collisional orogens and important to understanding just how deep the upper part of the continental lithosphere can subduct. We note that this School took place just twenty years from the first report by Christian Chopin of coesite in exposed orogenic metamorphic rocks of the continental crust. The lectures given at this school benefited by the scientific results of the research promoted by the ILP Task Groups III-6 and III-8, active on UHPM from 1994 to 1998 and 1999 to 2004, respectively, and published in a number of monographs and special issues of international journals. It is our strong belief that this petrologic topic should be recognised to be of paramount importance in the education of students and young researchers in Earth Science.

Abstract The present book shows the arguments which have been considered in the EMU School (No. 4), dealing with Energy Modelling in Minerals; these arguments have been selected in order to provide examples of application of the most advanced theories to several cases. It should be pointed out that although the ultimate solution of our problems should involve “ab initio” quantum-mechanical calculations, at present such sophisticated procedures are far from being routine. Therefore, although “ab initio” approaches will play an ever-increasing role in the future and some important and most recent examples of such approaches are illustrated here, the greatest part of the contributions is dealing with empirical atom-atom calculations. Remarkably enough, such “semi-empirical” applications are often quite successful, providing excellent (or comparatively excellent) results in spite of their more or less approximate nature. It often happens that the methods here illustrated are some steps ahead of the current level of empirical treatment, thereby indicating a possible way of improvement by figuring out routines to be adopted in practice. If some methods seem to be too speculative to be actually usable, here they also are shown, in view of their possible discussion, or just to indicate a way to obtain promising developments. Among the descriptions of practical methods and results, some purely theoretical arguments have been inserted; these arguments — although abstract — according to our opinion are fundamental for earth scientists. Owing to the present status of the art, in a number of arguments there is no unique opinion with respect to their theoretical treatment as it is explained by different authors. Instead of having all of them discarded except the one which looks to be the most appropriate to the Editor (who might sometimes be personally involved in the question), most of such controversial points have been left just as they are, in the original draft of their advocates. Accordingly, the reader might find some discrepancies between some articles and others, which may lead to some obscurity; there are, however, several good reasons in favour of our behaviour. First of all, with a few exceptions we apologize about, our attention in inviting the contributors has been extended to all the principal authors in the world, with no limitation to a group of particular friends; moreover, the presence of different opinions in the context might give rise to interesting debates and critical objections; a further point is that the validity of the different treatments is shown per se by either the level of the theory and most of all by the agreement with the corresponding experimental data. Since we have to do with an advanced school, and in line with what should be a scientific procedure, it is important to provide the user with the possibility of choosing what seems to be the most appropriate method among a number of selected possibilities, rather than yielding to the assertion that something is indeed the ultimate and unquestionable “truth”.

Abstract The EMU book series or notes, as they are called, were introduced to provide university teachers with up-to-date reviews in important, rapidly evolving areas of mineralogy, petrology and geochemistry. They are also meant to introduce scientists into special and often interdisciplinary fields of research. In this regard, a volume on solid solutions is current and sorely needed. The solid Earth, as well as many meteorites and the other solid planets, consists for the most part of mineral solid solutions. Research on solid solutions is extremely broad encompassing work in physics and chemistry, metallurgy, materials science and, last but not least, mineralogy and petrology. Hence, because the theme is so strongly interdisciplinary in nature, the workshop was organised to include solid state physicists, physical chemists, crystallographers, mineralogists and petrologists. The various chapters reflect some of this diversity and show what mineralogy has become. Experimental investigations in mineralogy now routinely include different types of spectroscopies along with more traditional phase equilibrium, X-ray diffraction, calorimetry, and TEM methods. There have also been new and impressive developments in theory and computation. Many computational approaches relating to the study of solid solutions, for example, the Cluster Variation Method or Monte Carlo simulations, have been brought in from materials science, chemistry and physics. It can be concluded that the traditional or historical, and perhaps artificial, boundaries between the various disciplines are disappearing. Many current research efforts in mineralogy are similar to those in chemistry, materials science and physics.