This paper provides a brief historic overview of the relationship between geology and human health, recognizing the use of geologic materials by the earliest humans, through the ancient civilizations to the present. It also includes a survey of contributions by physicians in Europe and the United States during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, followed by the developments in the twentieth century, particularly the post–World War II period, when the relationships between geology and health began to be actively investigated. The rapid evolution during the 1990s and the initiative and support of the International Union of Geological Sciences that culminated in the establishment of the International Medical Geology Association in 2005, and the Division of Geology and Health of the Geological Society of America in the United States in 2007, are discussed. Current status and future prospects of geology and health are highlighted.

Abstract Environmental Mineralogy is an area of investigation and research that applies to all thesystems operating at the surface of the Earth: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere. Minerals are basic to all the dynamic processes in each ofthese sectors. This chapter will focus on biominerals, a subset of mineral materialsthat are essential to all Earth’s inhabitants as they have been since the first livingspecies appeared over 3 billion years ago. Biominerals are those produced via biologicalmechanisms, a large suite of compounds, many familiar to mineralogists, but thischapter will concentrate on the biominerals found within humans. Not only are thesenatural, some are essential such as the mineral matter found in bones and teeth. Otherbiominerals found in humans are pathological and reflect disease states, like the‘stones’ that occur in the kidneys of some individuals. The study of human biomineralsoffers a novel view of the ‘geo-environment’.

Abstract Environmental Mineralogy, as we have seen from earlier chapters, applies to all the systems operating at the surface of the Earth: the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, the lithosphere and the biosphere, as minerals are basic to the dynamic processes operating in each of these areas. Minerals are also essential to every living thing that inhabits the Earth’s surface. We humans depend on the environment not only for the space we occupy, but for all sustenance, and we are beginning to understand how far we have moved toward defining our own environment. The human “sphere”, analogous to the spheres listed above, is an “open” system in a geologic sense, both a filter and link that integrates the other spheres. All the contributions in this volume will ultimately impact the health and well-being of the world’s populations, our living standards, and each of us individually. The human body has its own suite of minerals. They can be thought of as the human subset of the minerals produced by living creatures. The minerals in humans are analogous to the calcium carbonates that form the shells of clams and oysters, or the silica phytoliths found in grasses ( Lowenstam & Weiner, 1989 ). Wherever the biological site, composition, or form, the mineral species are known collectively as biominerals and the study area generally called biomineralisation. Biominerals are mineral materials generated through biologic, and to be more precise, cellular, activity. Biominerals may be deposited within the creature, and within its immediate surroundings or environment, as a result of the metabolism of the living creature.