The concentrations of trace elements in carbonate biominerals can provide critical proxy records of past chemical and physical environmental conditions. However, the concentrations of these elements within biominerals are influenced by the diverse biological processes that govern mineralisation. This allows us to use the trace element content of biominerals grown under known conditions to infer the biological, physical, and dynamical processes that are involved in biomineralisation mechanisms. Here we introduce how key biomineralisation mechanisms can influence trace element incorporation, and we offer a high-level overview of how trace elements are used to infer the relative importance of these mechanisms in major groups of marine calcifiers.

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