Chemistry Reference
In-Depth Information
1
An Overview of Biomineralization Processes
and the Problem of the Vital Effect
Steve Weiner
Department of Structural Biology
Weizmann Institute of Science
76100 Rehovot Israel
Patricia M. Dove
Department of GeoSciences
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, Virginia 24061 U.S.A.
“Biomineralization links soft organic tissues, which are compositionally akin to the atmosphere
and oceans, with the hard materials of the solid Earth. It provides organisms with skeletons
and shells while they are alive, and when they die these are deposited as sediment in
environments from river plains to the deep ocean floor. It is also these hard, resistant products
of life which are mainly responsible for the Earth's fossil record. Consequently,
biomineralization involves biologists, chemists, and geologists in interdisciplinary studies at
one of the interfaces between Earth and life.”
(Leadbeater and Riding 1986)
INTRODUCTION
Biomineralization refers to the processes by which organisms form minerals. The
control exerted by many organisms over mineral formation distinguishes these processes
from abiotic mineralization. The latter was the primary focus of earth scientists over the
last century, but the emergence of biogeochemistry and the urgency of understanding the
past and future evolution of the Earth are moving biological mineralization to the
forefront of various fields of science, including the earth sciences.
The growth in biogeochemistry has led to a number of new exciting research areas
where the distinctions between the biological, chemical, and earth sciences disciplines
melt away. Of the wonderful topics that are receiving renewed attention, the study of
biomineral formation is perhaps the most fascinating. Truly at the interface of earth and
life, biomineralization is a discipline that is certain to see major advancements as a new
generation of scientists brings cross-disciplinary training and new experimental and
computational methods to the most daunting problems. It is, however, by no means a new
field. The first topic on biomineralization was published in 1924 in German by W.J.
Schmidt (Schmidt 1924), and the subject has continued to intrigue a dedicated
community of scientists for many years. Until the early 1980s the field was known as
“calcification,” reflecting the predominance of biologically formed calcium-containing
minerals. As more and more biogenic minerals were discovered that contained other
cations, the field became known as “biomineralization.” An invaluable knowledge base
has been established in a literature that is found at virtually every call number in the
scientific library. With styles as varied as the biominerals themselves, the initiate will
find that a number of authors have extensively assessed the state of knowledge in texts
(e.g., Lowenstam and Weiner 1989; Simkiss and Wilbur 1989; Mann 2001) and
specialized reviews (e.g., Westbroek 1983; Leadbeater and Riding 1986; Crick 1989;
Bäuerlein 2000).
