Abstract:

 Environmentalbiological mineralogy is an interdisciplinary branch related with mineralogy, environmental science and life science. It is the extension of genetic mineralogy into the domain of life, being an important part of the systematic science of the earth. The main research field of environmentalbiological mineralogy includes the following aspects: the mineralogical expression of life origin and the function of minerals in the emergence of life; the biological diversity and relationship between the organisms and minerals under extreme environment; the mineral composition in organisms and the function, macroand microcrystal forms and selfassembled hierarchical structures of biominerals; the nucleation, growth and selfassemble processes for biomineral and the organic controlling; the environmental typomorphism of biominerals;the processes, mechanism and resourcesenvironment effect of biomineralization; the function, process and mechanism of minerals in life activities and their development and utilization. Biominerals have their own characteristics, and the selection of biominerals for environmental study should comply with the following four principles: “runthrough”, “sensitive”, with “periodic zone structure” and enough samples for “statistical”analysis. The environmental factors leading to the variation of mineralogical features should be recognized by using such methods as “correlation analysis”, “factor analysis” and “clustering analysis”. In environmental study, not only the frequently used genetic mineralogical theories and methods (such as the thermoluminescence technique),but also those of the other disciplines (especially life science, such as the computed tomography) can be utilized for developing the new biomineral environment indexes.

Key words:

Key words: genetic mineralogy; environmental science; life science; interdiscipline; methodology