Mineral Evolution

The concept of mineral evolution, developed by mineralogist Robert Hazen, describes the development of mineral diversity over the course of more than 4.5 billion years of Earth’s history. While there were only a few simple minerals at the beginning of our solar system, planetary processes, oceans, oxygen, and biological activity gave rise to thousands of new mineral species.

The new special exhibition at the Mineralogia Museum in Munich traces the ongoing evolution from the cosmic origins of matter, through the early molten Earth, the formation of the oceans, and the oxygenation of the atmosphere, to the explosion of mineral diversity—and finally to the Anthropocene, in which humans themselves have become a geological force. The history of minerals is also the history of our planet—and, ultimately, our own history.