Howler (error)

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howler_(error) 

 

A project error

A howler is a glaring blunder, clumsy mistake or embarrassing misjudgment, typically one which evokes laughter, though not always.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines howler, "3.3 slang. Something 'crying', 'clamant', or excessive; spec. a glaring blunder, esp. in an examination, etc.", and gives the earliest usage example in 1872. Eric Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English says; the 1951 edition of Partridge defined it in part as: "... A glaring (and amusing) blunder: from before 1890; ... also, a tremendous lie ... Literally something that howls or cries for notice, or perhaps ... by way of contracting howling blunder."

Another common interpretation of this usage is that a howler is a mistake fit to make one howl with laughter.

Equivalent terms

All over the world, probably in all natural languages, there are many informal terms for blunders; the English term "howler" occurs in many translating dictionaries. There are other colloquial English words for howler in the sense dealt with in this article, such as the mainly United States and Canadian slang term boner, which has various interpretations, including that of blunder. Like howler, boner can be used in any sense to mean an ignominious and (usually) laughable blunder, and also like howler, it has been used in the titles of published collections of largely schoolboy blunders since at least the 1930s.

Boner is another colloquialism that means much the same as howler in the context of this article, but its other meanings differ. For one, boner is not traditionally used as a general intensifier, or for specifically describing an accident or similar incidents as howler and howling are. Other assorted terms have much longer histories, and some of them are not regarded as slang. For example, Bull and Blunder have long been used in similar senses, each with its own overtones and assorted extraneous meanings. For example, Bulls and Blunders, an American book published in the 1890s, uses the word howler only once, in the passage: "Miss A. C. Graham, of Annerley, has received a prize from the University Correspondent for the best collection of schoolboy howlers". Although he did not otherwise use the word himself, the author did not define a term so familiar on both sides of the Atlantic even at that time.

Mathematics as a special case of terminology

Main article: Mathematical fallacy

In mathematics, the term "howler" is used to refer to a mathematical fallacy or an unsound method of reasoning which somehow leads to a correct result. However, the distinction between mathematical howlers and mathematical fallacies is poorly defined, and the terminology is confused and arbitrary, as hardly any uniform definition is universally accepted for any term. Terms related to howlers and fallacies include sophism, in which an error is wilfully concealed, whether for didactic purposes or for entertainment. In one sense, the converse of either a howler or a sophism is a mathematical paradox, in which a valid derivation leads to an unexpected or implausible result. However, in the terminology of Willard V. O. Quine, that would be a veridical paradox, whereas sophisms and fallacies would be falsidical paradoxes.

Forms of howler

Typically such definitions of the term howler or boner do not specify the mode of the error; a howler could be a solecism, a malapropism, or simply a spectacular, usually compact, demonstration of misunderstanding, illogic, or outright ignorance. As such, a howler could be an intellectual blunder in any field of knowledge, usually on a point that should have been obvious in context. In the short story by Eden Philpotts Doctor Dunston's Howler, the "howler" in question was not even verbal; it was flogging the wrong boy, with disastrous consequences.

Conversely, on inspection of many examples of bulls and howlers, they may simply be the products of unfortunate wording, punctuation, or point of view. In particular, schoolboy howlers might sometimes amount to what Richard Feynman refers to as perfectly reasonable deviations from the beaten track. Such specimens may variously be based on mondegreens, or they might be derived from misunderstandings of fact originated from the elders, teachers or communities. Not all howlers originate from the pupil.

Fields in which howlers propagate

As illustrated, terms such as howler need not specify the discipline in which the blunder was perpetrated. Howlers have little special application to any particular field, except perhaps education. Most collections refer mainly to the schoolboy howler, politician's howler, epitaph howler, judicial howler, and so on, not always using the term howler, boner or the like. There are various classes in mood as well; the typical schoolboy howler displays innocent ignorance or misunderstanding, whereas the typical politician's howler is likely to expose smugly ignorant pretentiousness, bigotry, or self-interest (see examples below).

The howlers of prominent or self-important people lend themselves to parody and satire, so much so that Quaylisms, Bushisms, Goldwynisms, and Yogiisms were coined in far greater numbers than ever the alleged sources could have produced. Sometimes such lampooning is fairly good-humoured, sometimes it is deliberately used as a political weapon. In either case, it is generally easier to propagate a spuriously attributed howler than to retract one.

The popularity of howlers

Collections of howlers, boners, bulls and the like are popular sellers as joke books go, and they tend to remain popular as reprints; Abingdon, for example, remarks on that in his preface. People commonly enjoy laughing at the blunders of stereotypes from a comfortable position of superiority. This applies especially strongly when the object of the condescension and mockery is a member of some other social class or group. National, regional, racial, or political rivals, occupational groups such as lawyers, doctors, police, and armed forces, all are stock targets of assorted jokes; their howlers, fictional or otherwise, are common themes. Older collections of cartoons and jokes, published before the modern sensitivity to political correctness, are rich sources of examples.

Sometimes, especially in oppressed peoples, such wit takes on an ironic turn and the butt of the stories then becomes one's own people. It is very likely that such mock self-mockery gave rise to the term Irish bull (as opposed to just any bull), which is reflected in works such as Samuel Lover's novel Handy Andy.

Similarly, the Yiddish stories of the "wise men" of the town of Chelm could be argued to be as rich in self-mockery as in mockery. There are many similar examples of mixed mockery and self-mockery—good-natured or otherwise.

Throughout the ages and in practically all countries, there have been proverbial associations of given regions with foolishness or insanity, ranging from the Phrygians and Boeotians of classical times, down to the present. Stories of the Wise Men of Gotham are prominent medieval examples. Apocryphally, the men of Gotham feigned insanity to discourage unwelcome attention from the representatives of King John early in the thirteenth century. Their fictitious activities recalled stories from many other alleged regions of dunces and in fact, many recurring stories have been borrowed through the ages from other times and places, either for entertainment or satire. For example, some Gotham stories, variously embellished, are far older than the actual town of Gotham; consider for instance the second one: it concerned the man who, not wishing to overburden his horse, took the load off his horse onto his own back as he rode it. That story dates back much further than medieval times and since the time of the alleged event in Gotham, it has appeared in Afrikaans comics of the mid-twentieth century, and no doubt elsewhere. However, such traditions often grow on histories of tyranny and are nurtured as two-edged weapons; as the men of Gotham reputedly said: "We ween there are more fools pass through Gotham than remain in it."

Howler propagation and afterlife – Ghost words

Main article: Ghost word

Howlers "in the wild" include many misuses of technical terms or principles that are too obscure or too unfunny for anyone to publish them. Such examples accordingly remain obscure, but a few have reappeared subsequently as good faith entries in dictionaries, encyclopaedias, and related authoritative documents. In the nature of things, encyclopaedic and lexicographic sources rely heavily on each other, and such words have a tendency to propagate from one textbook to another. It can be very difficult to eradicate unnoticed errors that have achieved publication in standard reference books.

Professor Walter William Skeat coined the term ghost-word in the late nineteenth century. By that he meant the creation of fictitious, originally meaningless, words by such influences as printers' errors and illegible copy. So for example, "ciffy" instead of "cliffy" and "morse" instead of "nurse" are just two examples that propagated considerably in printed material, so much so that they occasionally are to be found in print or in usage today, more than a century later, sometimes in old books still in use, sometimes in modern publications relying on such books.

Apart from the problems of revealing the original errors once they have been accepted, there is the problem of dealing with the supporting rationalisations that arise in the course of time. See for example the article on Riding (country subdivision), paying particular attention to the reference to farthing and the sections on Word history and Norse states. In the context of such documented material the false etymology of "Riding" is particularly illustrative: "A common misconception holds that the term arose from some association between the size of the district and the distance that can be covered on horseback in a certain amount of time".

As a notorious example of how such errors can become officially established, the extant and established name of Nome, Alaska allegedly originated when a British cartographer copied an ambiguous annotation made by a British officer on a nautical chart. The officer had written "? Name" next to the unnamed cape. The mapmaker misread the annotation as "C. Nome", meaning Cape Nome. If that story is true, then the name is a material example of a ghost word.

As an example of how such assertions may be disputed, an alternative story connects the source with the place name: Nomedalen in Norway.

Technical terms and technical incompetence

The misuse of technical terms to produce howlers is so common that it often goes unnoticed except by people skilled in the relevant fields. One case in point is the use of "random", when the intended meaning is adventitious, arbitrary, accidental, or something similarly uncertain or nondeterministic. Another example is to speak of something as infinite when the intended meaning is: "very large". Some terms have been subject to such routine abuse that they lose their proper meanings, reducing their expressive value. Imply, infer, unique, absolute and many others have become difficult to use in any precise sense without risk of misunderstanding. Such howlers are lamented as a pernicious, but probably unavoidable, aspect of the continuous change of language. One consequence is that most modern readers are unable to make sense of early modern books, even those as recent as the First Folio of Shakespeare or the earliest editions of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible.

The popularity of nautical themes in literature has provided some conspicuous examples. It has tempted many authors ignorant of the technicalities, into embarrassing howlers in their terminology. A popular example is in the opening line of the song Tom Bowling by Charles Dibdin. It refers metaphorically to a human corpse as a "sheer hulk". The intent is something like "complete wreck", which is quite inappropriate to the real meaning of the term. In literature, blunders of that type have been so common for so long that they have been satirised in works such as the short story by Doyle: Cyprian Overbeck Wells, in which he mocks the nautical blunders in the terminology Jonathan Swift used in Gulliver's Travels.

Sources and authenticity

In contrast to tales representing people's rivals as stupid or undignified, it is easy to believe that many or most schoolboy howlers are genuine, or at least are based on genuine incidents; any school teacher interested in the matter can collect authentic samples routinely. However, it is beyond doubt that the collections formally published or otherwise in circulation contain spurious examples, or at least a high degree of creative editing, as is variously remarked upon in the introductory text of the more thoughtful anthologies. It most certainly is not as a rule possible to establish anything like definitive, pedantically correct versions with authentic wording, even if there were much point to any such ideal. Howlers typically are informally reported, and some of them have been generated repeatedly by similar confusion in independent sources. For example, two members of parliament independently approached Babbage with the same uncomprehending question about his machine.

Examples and collections of allegedly genuine howlers

John Humphrys relates the following example of a journalistic howler: ...The headline above one of the stories on my page read: "Work Comes Second For Tony And I". In case you did not know, newspaper headlines are written not by the contributors but by sub-editors ... I was shocked. That a sub on the Times should commit such a howler was beyond belief. (The howler is that the headline should read, "Tony And Me", given that they are the object of the sentence; however, see coordinative constructions.)

Charles Babbage related his reaction as an intellectual when he wrote: 'On two occasions I have been asked, — "Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?" In one case a member of the Upper, and in the other a member of the Lower, House put this question. I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.' One might see this as a politicians' howler, a layman may so radically fail to understand the logical structure of a system, that he cannot begin to perceive the matching logic of the problems that the system is suited to deal with. One must of course respect the fact that the members concerned had done no worse than reveal their lack of insight into a technical matter; they had not pretentiously propounded personal delusions as fact, which would be more typical of the most notorious howlers perpetrated by politicians.

Probably the most prominent anthologisers of howlers in the United Kingdom were Cecil Hunt and Russell Ash. In the United States, probably the most prominent was Alexander Abingdon. According to Abingdon's foreword to Bigger and Better Boners, he shared material with Hunt at least. However, since their day many more collections have appeared, commonly relying heavily on plagiarism of the earlier anthologies.

Here are a few short, illustrative examples of mainly schoolboy howlers culled from various collections:

Examples of retention of misinformation, or where information is presented in an unfamiliar context:

• A Cattle is a shaggy kind of cow. (Perhaps a city child had been shown a picture of highland cattle before he knew the word “cattle”. If so, the error was natural.)
• Africa is much hotter than some countries because it is abroad. (To a British child growing up in a cold temperate zone, a natural idea.)
• Poetry is when every line starts with a capital letter. (Even many adults struggle to distinguish poetry from prose after first encountering free verse.)
• The locusts were the chief plague, they ate the first-born.
• All creatures are imperfect beasts. Man alone is a perfect beast.

Unfamiliar instruction heard without comprehension frequently leads to mondegreens and malapropisms:

• Hiatus is breath that wants seeing to. (for "halitosis")
• A gherkin is a native who runs after people with a knife. (for "Gurkha")

Mistranslations from foreign languages happen:

• "Cum grano salis" means: "Although with a corn, thou dancest." (mistranslation from Latin; salis also means "of salt")
• "Mon frère ainé" means: "My ass of a brother". (mistranslation from French; âne = "donkey", ainé = "older")
• "Ris de veau financière" (a cookery dish) misrendered from French as "the laugh of the calf at the banker's wife"
• "La primavera es el parte del ano en que todo se cambia." (The pupil neglected a tilde; año means "year" and ano means "anus".)
• "Inkstand" has appeared on a Greek restaurant menu, when octopus was meant; the writer probably looked up the Greek χταπόδι in a Greek–German dictionary and found Tintenfisch. They then looked that up in a German–English dictionary but took the translation for the word before Tintenfisch, which was Tintenfass—in English inkstand, inkwell.

Bull: a confusion of wording often related vaguely to a valid idea; not all howlers are bulls in this sense, but the following are:

• The Magna Carta provided that no free man should be hanged twice for the same offence.
• Edward III would have been King of France if his mother had been a man.
• To be a good nurse you must be absolutely sterile.
• Tundras are the treeless forests of South America.

In extreme examples of bulls it is hard to guess exactly what the pupil had in mind, or how to correct it. For example:

• Homer was not written by Homer, but another man of that name.

Perhaps this stems from some idea that Homer’s works were written by someone else (see Homeric question). Whatever its origin, it is a prime example of how a howler, and in particular the paradoxical aspects of a bull, presumably inadvertently, may constitute deeper comment on the human condition than most deliberate epigrams.

Sometimes the pupil simply may have been groping for any answer that might placate the examiner.

• The plural of ox is oxygen.
• The Israelites made a golden calf because they didn't have enough gold to make a cow.
• SOS is a musical term. It means Same Only Softer.
• There are four symptoms for a cold. Two I forget and the other two are too well known to mention.

Some howlers are disconcertingly thought-provoking or look suspiciously like cynicism.

• Dictionaries are books written by people who think they can spell better than anyone else.
• "Etc" is a sign used to make believe that you know more than you do.
• The difference between air and water is that air can be made wetter, but not water.
• What is half of five? It depends on whether you mean the two or the three.

As already remarked, not all howlers are verbal:

• One youngster copied down a subtraction sum wrongly, with the smaller number above. As it happened, the date was just above his sum, so he borrowed from his date.

Evolutionary linguistics

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_linguistics 

Evolutionary linguistics or Darwinian linguistics is a sociobiological approach to the study of language. Evolutionary linguists consider linguistics as a subfield of sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. The approach is also closely linked with evolutionary anthropology, cognitive linguistics and biolinguistics. Studying languages as the products of nature, it is interested in the biological origin and development of language. Evolutionary linguistics is contrasted with humanistic approaches, especially structural linguistics.

A main challenge in this research is the lack of empirical data: there are no archaeological traces of early human language. Computational biological modelling and clinical research with artificial languages have been employed to fill in gaps of knowledge. Although biology is understood to shape the brain, which processes language, there is no clear link between biology and specific human language structures or linguistic universals.

For lack of a breakthrough in the field, there have been numerous debates about what kind of natural phenomenon language might be. Some researchers focus on the innate aspects of language. It is suggested that grammar has emerged adaptationally from the human genome, bringing about a language instinct; or that it depends on a single mutation which has caused a language organ to appear in the human brain. This is hypothesized to result in a crystalline grammatical structure underlying all human languages. Others suggest language is not crystallized, but fluid and ever-changing. Others, yet, liken languages to living organisms. Languages are considered analogous to a parasite or populations of mind-viruses. While there is no solid scientific evidence for any of the claims, some of them have been labelled as pseudoscience.

History

1863–1945: social Darwinism

Although pre-Darwinian theorists had compared languages to living organisms as a metaphor, the comparison was first taken literally in 1863 by the historical linguist August Schleicher who was inspired by Charles Darwin's Origin of the Species. At the time there was not enough evidence to prove that Darwin's theory of natural selection was correct. Schleicher proposed that linguistics could be used as a testing ground for the study of the evolution of species. A review of Schleicher's book Darwinism as Tested by the Science of Language appeared in the first issue of Nature journal in 1870. Darwin reiterated Schleicher's proposition in his 1871 book The Descent of Man, claiming that languages are comparable to species, and that language change occurs through natural selection as words 'struggle for life'. Darwin believed that languages had evolved from animal mating calls. Darwinists considered the concept of language creation as unscientific.

The social Darwinists Schleicher and Ernst Haeckel were keen gardeners and regarded the study of cultures as a type of botany, with different species competing for the same living space. Their ideas became advocated by politicians who wanted to appeal to working class voters, not least by the national socialists who subsequently included the concept of struggle for living space in their agenda. Highly influential until the end of World War II, social Darwinism was eventually banished from human sciences, leading to a strict separation of natural and sociocultural studies.

This gave rise to the dominance of structural linguistics in Europe. There had long been a dispute between the Darwinists and the French intellectuals with the topic of language evolution famously having been banned by the Paris Linguistic Society as early as in 1866. Ferdinand de Saussure proposed structuralism to replace evolutionary linguistics in his Course in General Linguistics, published posthumously in 1916. The structuralists rose to academic political power in human and social sciences in the aftermath of the student revolts of Spring 1968, establishing Sorbonne as an international centrepoint of humanistic thinking.

From 1959 onwards: genetic determinism

In the United States, structuralism was however fended off by the advocates of behavioural psychology; a linguistics framework nicknamed as 'American structuralism'. It was eventually replaced by the approach of Noam Chomsky who published a modification of Louis Hjelmslev's formal structuralist theory, claiming that syntactic structures are innate. An active figure in peace demonstrations in the 1950s and 1960s, Chomsky rose to academic political power following Spring 1968 at the MIT.

Chomsky became an influential opponent of the French intellectuals during the following decades, and his supporters successfully confronted the post-structuralists in the Science Wars of the late 1990s. The shift of the century saw a new academic funding policy where interdisciplinary research became favoured, effectively directing research funds to biological humanities. The decline of structuralism was evident by 2015 with Sorbonne having lost its former spirit.

Chomsky eventually claimed that syntactic structures are caused by a random mutation in the human genome, proposing a similar explanation for other human faculties such as ethics. But Steven Pinker argued in 1990 that they are the outcome of evolutionary adaptations.

From 1976 onwards: Neo-Darwinism

At the same time when the Chomskyan paradigm of biological determinism defeated humanism, it was losing its own clout within sociobiology. It was reported likewise in 2015 that generative grammar was under fire in applied linguistics and in the process of being replaced with usage-based linguistics; a derivative of Richard Dawkins's memetics. It is a concept of linguistic units as replicators. Following the publication of memetics in Dawkins's 1976 nonfiction bestseller The Selfish Gene, many biologically inclined linguists, frustrated with the lack of evidence for Chomsky's Universal Grammar, grouped under different brands including a framework called Cognitive Linguistics (with capitalised initials), and 'functional' (adaptational) linguistics (not to be confused with functional linguistics) to confront both Chomsky and the humanists. The replicator approach is today dominant in evolutionary linguistics, applied linguistics, cognitive linguistics and linguistic typology; while the generative approach has maintained its position in general linguistics, especially syntax; and in computational linguistics.

View of linguistics

Evolutionary linguistics is part of a wider framework of Universal Darwinism. In this view, linguistics is seen as an ecological environment for research traditions struggling for the same resources. According to David Hull, these traditions correspond to species in biology. Relationships between research traditions can be symbiotic, competitive or parasitic. An adaptation of Hull's theory in linguistics is proposed by William Croft. He argues that the Darwinian method is more advantageous than linguistic models based on physics, structuralist sociology, or hermeneutics.

Approaches

Evolutionary linguistics is often divided into functionalism and formalism, concepts which are not to be confused with functionalism and formalism in the humanistic reference. Functional evolutionary linguistics considers languages as adaptations to human mind. The formalist view regards them as crystallised or non-adaptational.

Functionalism (adaptationism)

The adaptational view of language is advocated by various frameworks of cognitive and evolutionary linguistics, with the terms 'functionalism' and 'Cognitive Linguistics' often being equated. It is hypothesised that the evolution of the animal brain provides humans with a mechanism of abstract reasoning which is a 'metaphorical' version of image-based reasoning. Language is not considered as a separate area of cognition, but as coinciding with general cognitive capacities, such as perception, attention, motor skills, and spatial and visual processing. It is argued to function according to the same principles as these.

It is thought that the brain links action schemes to form–meaning pairs which are called constructions. Cognitive linguistic approaches to syntax are called cognitive and construction grammar. Also deriving from memetics and other cultural replicator theories, these can study the natural or social selection and adaptation of linguistic units. Adaptational models reject a formal systemic view of language and consider language as a population of linguistic units.

The bad reputation of social Darwinism and memetics has been discussed in the literature, and recommendations for new terminology have been given. What correspond to replicators or mind-viruses in memetics are called linguemes in Croft's theory of Utterance Selection (TUS), and likewise linguemes or constructions in construction grammar and usage-based linguistics; and metaphors, frames or schemas in cognitive and construction grammar. The reference of memetics has been largely replaced with that of a Complex Adaptive System. In current linguistics, this term covers a wide range of evolutionary notions while maintaining the Neo-Darwinian concepts of replication and replicator population.

Functional evolutionary linguistics is not to be confused with functional humanistic linguistics.

Formalism (structuralism)

Advocates of formal evolutionary explanation in linguistics argue that linguistic structures are crystallised. Inspired by 19th century advances in crystallography, Schleicher argued that different types of languages are like plants, animals and crystals. The idea of linguistic structures as frozen drops was revived in tagmemics, an approach to linguistics with the goal to uncover divine symmetries underlying all languages, as if caused by the Creation.

In modern biolinguistics, the X-bar tree is argued to be like natural systems such as ferromagnetic droplets and botanic forms. Generative grammar considers syntactic structures similar to snowflakes. It is hypothesised that such patterns are caused by a mutation in humans.

The formal–structural evolutionary aspect of linguistics is not to be confused with structural linguistics.

Evidence

There was some hope of a breakthrough at the discovery of the FOXP2 gene. There is little support, however, for the idea that FOXP2 is 'the grammar gene' or that it had much to do with the relatively recent emergence of syntactical speech. There is no evidence that people have a language instinct. Memetics is widely discredited as pseudoscience and neurological claims made by evolutionary cognitive linguists have been likened to pseudoscience. All in all, there does not appear to be any evidence for the basic tenets of evolutionary linguistics beyond the fact that language is processed by the brain, and brain structures are shaped by genes.

Criticism

Evolutionary linguistics has been criticised by advocates of (humanistic) structural and functional linguistics. Ferdinand de Saussure commented on 19th century evolutionary linguistics:

"Language was considered a specific sphere, a fourth natural kingdom; this led to methods of reasoning which would have caused astonishment in other sciences. Today one cannot read a dozen lines written at that time without being struck by absurdities of reasoning and by the terminology used to justify these absurdities”

Mark Aronoff, however, argues that historical linguistics had its golden age during the time of Schleicher and his supporters, enjoying a place among the hard sciences, and considers the return of Darwnian linguistics as a positive development. Esa Itkonen nonetheless deems the revival of Darwinism as a hopeless enterprise:

"There is ... an application of intelligence in linguistic change which is absent in biological evolution; and this suffices to make the two domains totally disanalogous ... [Grammaticalisation depends on] cognitive processes, ultimately serving the goal of problem solving, which intelligent entities like humans must perform all the time, but which biological entities like genes cannot perform. Trying to eliminate this basic difference leads to confusion.”

Itkonen also points out that the principles of natural selection are not applicable because language innovation and acceptance have the same source which is the speech community. In biological evolution, mutation and selection have different sources. This makes it possible for people to change their languages, but not their genotype.

Mineral evolution

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mineral_evolution 

 

Most minerals on Earth formed after photosynthesis by cyanobacteria (pictured) began adding oxygen to the atmosphere.

Mineral evolution is a recent hypothesis that provides historical context to mineralogy. It postulates that mineralogy on planets and moons becomes increasingly complex as a result of changes in the physical, chemical and biological environment. In the Solar System, the number of mineral species has grown from about a dozen to over 5400 as a result of three processes: separation and concentration of elements; greater ranges of temperature and pressure coupled with the action of volatiles; and new chemical pathways provided by living organisms.

On Earth, there were three eras of mineral evolution. The birth of the Sun and formation of asteroids and planets increased the number of minerals to about 250. Repeated reworking of the crust and mantle through processes such as partial melting and plate tectonics increased the total to about 1500. The remaining minerals, more than two-thirds of the total, were the result of chemical changes mediated by living organisms, with the largest increase occurring after the Great Oxygenation Event.

Use of the term "evolution"

In the 2008 paper that introduced the term "mineral evolution", Robert Hazen and co-authors recognized that an application of the word "evolution" to minerals was likely to be controversial, although there were precedents as far back as the 1928 book The Evolution of the Igneous Rocks by Norman Bowen. They used the term in the sense of an irreversible sequence of events leading to increasingly complex and diverse assemblages of minerals. Unlike biological evolution, it does not involve mutation, competition or passing of information to progeny. Hazen et al. explored some other analogies, including the idea of extinction. Some mineral-forming processes no longer occur, such as those that produced certain minerals in enstatite chondrites that are unstable on Earth in its oxidized state. Also, the runaway greenhouse effect on Venus may have led to permanent losses of mineral species. However, mineral extinction is not truly irreversible; a lost mineral could emerge again if suitable environmental conditions were re-established.

Presolar minerals

Presolar grains ("stardust") from the Murchison meteorite provide information on the first minerals.

In the early Universe, there were no minerals because the only elements available were hydrogen, helium and trace amounts of lithium. Mineral formation became possible after heavier elements, including carbon, oxygen, silicon and nitrogen, were synthesized in stars. In the expanding atmospheres of red giants and the ejecta from supernovae, microscopic minerals formed at temperatures above 1,500 °C (2,730 °F).

Evidence of these minerals can be found in interstellar grains incorporated into primitive meteorites called chondrites, which are essentially cosmic sedimentary rocks. The number of known species is roughly a dozen, although several more materials have been identified but not classified as minerals. Because it has a high crystallization temperature (about 4,400 °C (7,950 °F)), diamond was probably the first mineral to form. This was followed by graphite, oxides (rutile, corundum, spinel, hibonite), carbides (moissanite), nitrides (osbornite and silicon nitride) and silicates (forsterite and silicate perovskite (MgSiO₃)). These "ur-minerals" seeded the molecular clouds from which the Solar system was formed.

Processes

After the formation of the Solar system, mineral evolution was driven by three primary mechanisms: the separation and concentration of elements; greater ranges of temperature and pressure combined with chemical action of volatiles; and new reaction pathways driven by living organisms.

Separation and concentration

Cutaway views of some terrestrial planets, showing the layers

 

See also: Geochemistry § Differentiation and mixing

The highest level in the classification of minerals is based on chemical composition. However, the defining elements for many mineral groups, such as boron in borates and phosphorus in phosphates, were at first only present in concentrations of parts per million or less. This left little or no chance for them to come together and form minerals until external influences concentrated them. Processes that separate and concentrate elements include planetary differentiation (for example, separation into layers such as a core and mantle); outgassing; fractional crystallization; and partial melting.

Intensive variables and volatiles

Gypsum crystals formed as the water evaporated in Lake Lucero, New Mexico

Allowable combinations of elements in minerals are determined by thermodynamics; for an element to be added to a crystal at a given location, it must reduce the energy. At higher temperatures, many elements are interchangeable in minerals such as olivine. As a planet cools, minerals became exposed to a greater range of intensive variables such as temperature and pressure, allowing the formation of new phases and more specialized combinations of elements such as clay minerals and zeolites. New minerals are formed when volatile compounds such as water, carbon dioxide and O₂ react with them. Environments such as ice caps, dry lakes, and exhumed metamorphic rock have distinctive suites of minerals.

Biological influence

Life has made dramatic changes in the environment. Most dramatic was the Great Oxygenation Event, about 2.4 billion years ago, in which photosynthetic organisms flooded the atmosphere with oxygen. Living organisms also catalyze reactions, creating minerals such as aragonite that are not in equilibrium with their surroundings.

Chronology

Before the formation of the Solar System, there were about 12 minerals. The estimate for the current number of minerals has been changing rapidly. In 2008, it was 4300, but as of November 2018 there were 5413 officially recognized mineral species.

In their chronology for Earth, Hazen et al. (2008) separated the changes in mineral abundance into three broad intervals: planetary accretion up to 4.55 Ga (billion years ago); reworking of Earth's crust and mantle between 4.55 Ga and 2.5 Ga; and biological influences after 2.5 Ga. They further divided the ages into 10 intervals, some of which overlap. In addition, some of the dates are uncertain; for example, estimates of the onset of modern plate tectonics range from 4.5 Ga to 1.0 Ga.

Eras and stages of Earth's mineral evolution

Era/stage	Age (Ga)	Cumulative no. of species
Prenebular "Ur-minerals"	>4.6	12
Era of planetary accretion (>4.55 Ga)
1. Sun ignites, heating nebula	>4.56	60
2. Planetesimals form	>4.56–4.55	250
Era of crust and mantle reworking (4.55–2.5 Ga)
3. Igneous rock evolution	4.55–4.0	350–420
4. Granitoid and pegmatite formation	4.0–3.5	1000
5. Plate tectonics	>3.0	1500
Era of biologically mediated mineralogy (2.5 Ga – present)
6. Anoxic biological world	3.9–2.5	1500
7. Great Oxidation Event	2.5–1.9	>4000
8. Intermediate ocean	1.85–0.85 181	>4000
9. Snowball Earth events	0.85–0.542	>4000
10. Phanerozoic era of biomineralization	<0.542	>5413

Planetary accretion

Main article: Planetary accretion

 

Cross-section of a chondrite containing round olivine chondrules and irregular white CAIs

 

Sample of a pallasite with olivine crystals in an iron-nickel matrix

In the first era, the Sun ignited, heating the surrounding molecular cloud. 60 new minerals were produced and were preserved as inclusions in chondrites. The accretion of dust into asteroids and planets, bombardments, heating and reactions with water raised the number to 250.

Stage 1: Sun ignites

Before 4.56 Ga, the presolar nebula was a dense molecular cloud consisting of hydrogen and helium gas with dispersed dust grains. When the Sun ignited and entered its T-Tauri phase, it melted nearby dust grains. Some of the melt droplets were incorporated into chondrites as small spherical objects called chondrules. Almost all chondrites also contain calcium–aluminium-rich inclusions (CAIs), the earliest materials formed in the Solar System. From an examination of chondrites from this era, 60 new minerals can be identified with crystal structures from all of the crystal systems. These included the first iron-nickel alloys, sulfides, phosphides, and several silicates and oxides. Among the most important were magnesium-rich olivine, magnesium-rich pyroxene, and plagioclase. Some rare minerals, produced in oxygen-poor environments no longer found on Earth, can be found in enstatite chondrites.

Stage 2: Planetesimals form

Soon after the new minerals formed in Stage 1, they began to clump together, forming asteroids and planets. One of the most important new minerals was ice; the early Solar System had a "snow line" separating rocky planets and asteroids from ice-rich gas giants, asteroids and comets. Heating from radionuclides melted the ice and the water reacted with olivine-rich rocks, forming phyllosilicates, oxides such as magnetite, sulfides such as pyrrhotite, the carbonates dolomite and calcite, and sulfates such as gypsum. Shock and heat from bombardment and eventual melting produced minerals such as ringwoodite, a major component of Earth's mantle.

Eventually, asteroids heated enough for partial melting to occur, producing melts rich in pyroxene and plagioclase (capable of producing basalt) and a variety of phosphates. Siderophile (metal-loving) and lithophile (silicate-loving) elements separated, leading to the formation of a core and crust, and incompatible elements were sequestered in the melts. The resulting minerals have been preserved in a type of stony meteorite, eucrite (quartz, potassium feldspar, titanite and zircon) and in iron-nickel meteorites (iron-nickel alloys such as kamacite and taenite; transition metal sulfides such as troilite; carbides and phosphides). An estimated 250 new minerals formed in this stage.

Crust and mantle reworking

A zircon crystal

 

Pegmatite sample from the Grand Canyon

 

Schematic of a subduction zone

The second era in the history of mineral evolution began with the massive impact that formed the Moon. This melted most of the crust and mantle. Early mineralogy was determined by crystallization of igneous rocks and further bombardments. This phase was then replaced by extensive recycling of crust and mantle, so that at the end of this era there were about 1500 mineral species. However, few of the rocks survived from this period so the timing of many events remains uncertain.

Stage 3: Igneous processes

Stage 3 began with a crust made of mafic (high in iron and magnesium) and ultramafic rocks such as basalt. These rocks were repeatedly recycled by fractional melting, fractional crystallization and separation of magmas that refuse to mix. An example of such a process is Bowen's reaction series.

One of the few sources of direct information on mineralogy in this stage is mineral inclusions in zircon crystals, which date back as far as 4.4 Ga. Among the minerals in the inclusions are quartz, muscovite, biotite, potassium feldspar, albite, chlorite and hornblende.

In a volatile-poor body such as Mercury and the Moon, the above processes give rise to about 350 mineral species. Water and other volatiles, if present, increase the total. Earth was volatile-rich, with an atmosphere composed of N₂, CO₂ and water, and an ocean that became steadily more saline. Volcanism, outgassing and hydration gave rise to hydroxides, hydrates, carbonates and evaporites. For Earth, where this stage coincides with the Hadean Eon, the total number of widely occurring minerals is estimated to be 420, with over 100 more that were rare. Mars probably reached this stage of mineral evolution.

Stage 4: Granitoids and pegmatite formation

Given sufficient heat, basalt was remelted to form granitoids, coarse-grained rocks similar to granite. Cycles of melting concentrated rare elements such as lithium, beryllium, boron, niobium, tantalum and uranium to the point where they could form 500 new minerals. Many of these are concentrated in exceptionally coarse-grained rocks called pegmatites that are typically found in dikes and veins near larger igneous masses. Venus may have achieved this level of evolution.

Stage 5: Plate tectonics

With the onset of plate tectonics, subduction carried crust and water down, leading to fluid-rock interactions and more concentration of rare elements. In particular, sulfide deposits were formed with 150 new sulfosalt minerals. Subduction also carried cooler rock into the mantle and exposed it to higher pressures, resulting in new phases that were later uplifted and exposed as metamorphic minerals such as kyanite and sillimanite.

Biologically mediated mineralogy

Stromatolite fossil in section of a 2.1 Ga banded iron formation

 

Curite, a lead uranium oxide mineral

The inorganic processes described in the previous section produced about 1500 mineral species. The remaining more than two-thirds of Earth's minerals are the result of the transformation of Earth by living organisms. The largest contribution was from the enormous increase in the oxygen content of the atmosphere, starting with the Great Oxygenation Event. Living organisms also started to produce skeletons and other forms of biomineralization. Minerals such as calcite, metal oxides and many clay minerals could be considered biosignatures, along with gems such as turquoise, azurite and malachite.

Stage 6: Biology in an anoxic world

Before about 2.45 Ga, there was very little oxygen in the atmosphere. Life may have played a role in the precipitation of massive carbonate layers near continental margins and in the deposition of banded iron formations, but there is no unambiguous evidence of the effect of life on minerals.

Stage 7: Great Oxygenation Event

Starting around 2.45 Ga and continuing to about 2.0 or 1.9 Ga, there was a dramatic rise in the oxygen content of the lower atmosphere, continents and oceans called the Great Oxygenation Event or Great Oxidation Event (GOE). Before the GOE, elements that can be in multiple oxidation states were restricted to the lowest state, and that limited the variety of minerals they could form. In older sediments, the minerals siderite (FeCO₃), uraninite (UO₂) and pyrite (FeS₂) are commonly found. These oxidize rapidly when exposed to an atmosphere with oxygen, yet this did not occur even after extensive weathering and transport.

When the concentration of oxygen molecules in the atmosphere reached 1% of the present level, the chemical reactions during weathering were much like they are today. Siderite and pyrite were replaced by the iron oxides magnetite and hematite; dissolved Fe²⁺ ions that had been carried out to sea were now deposited in extensive banded iron formations. However, this did not result in new iron minerals, just a change in their abundance. By contrast, oxidization of uraninite resulted in over 200 new species of uranyl minerals such as soddyite and weeksite, as well as mineral complexes such as gummite.

Other elements that have multiple oxidation states include copper (which occurs in 321 oxides and silicates), boron, vanadium, magnesium, selenium, tellurium, arsenic, antimony, bismuth, silver and mercury. In total, about 2500 new minerals formed.

Stage 8: Intermediate ocean

The next roughly billion years (1.85–0.85 Ga) are often referred to as the "Boring Billion" because little seemed to happen. The more oxidized layer of ocean water near the surface slowly deepened at the expense of the anoxic depths, but there did not seem to be any dramatic change in climate, biology or mineralogy. However, some of this perception may be due to poor preservation of rocks from that time span. Many of the world's most valuable reserves of lead, zinc and silver, are found in rocks from this time, as well as rich sources of beryllium, boron and uranium minerals. This interval also saw the formation of the supercontinent Columbia, its breakup, and the formation of Rodinia. In some quantitative studies of beryllium, boron and mercury minerals, there are no new minerals during the Great Oxidation Event, but a pulse of innovation during the assembly of Columbia. The reasons for this are not clear, although it may have had something to do with the release of mineralizing fluids during mountain building.

Stage 9: Snowball Earth

Between 1.0 and 0.542 Ga, the Earth experienced at least two "Snowball Earth" events in which much (possibly all) of the surface was covered by ice (making it the dominant surface mineral). Associated with the ice were cap carbonates, thick layers of limestone or dolomite, with aragonite fans. Clay minerals were also produced in abundance, and volcanoes managed to pierce through the ice and add to the stock of minerals.

Stage 10: Phanerozoic era and biomineralization

Late Cambrian trilobite fossil

The last stage coincides with the Phanerozoic era, in which biomineralization, the creation of minerals by living organisms, became widespread. Although some biominerals can be found in earlier records, it was during the Cambrian explosion that most of the known skeletal forms developed, and the major skeletal minerals (calcite, aragonite, apatite and opal). Most of these are carbonates, but some are phosphates or calcite. In all, over 64 mineral phases have been identified in living organisms, including metal sulfides, oxides, hydroxides and silicates; over two dozen have been found in the human body.

Before the Phanerozoic, land was mostly barren rock, but plants began to populate it in the Silurian Period. This led to an order-of-magnitude increase in the production of clay minerals. In the oceans, plankton transported calcium carbonate from shallow waters to the deep ocean, inhibiting the production of cap carbonates and making future snowball Earth events less likely. Microbes also became involved in the geochemical cycles of most elements, making them biogeochemical cycles. The mineralogical novelties included organic minerals that have been found in carbon-rich remnants of life such as coal and black shales.

Anthropocene

The mineral abhurite forms when tin artifacts corrode in sea water, and is found near some shipwrecks.

Strictly speaking, purely biogenic minerals are not recognized by the International Mineralogical Association (IMA) unless geological processes are also involved. Purely biological products such as the shells of marine organisms are not accepted. Also explicitly excluded are anthropogenic compounds. However, humans have had such an impact on the surface of the planet that geologists are considering the introduction of a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, to reflect these changes.

In 2015, Zalasiewicz and co-authors proposed that the definition of minerals be extended to include human-minerals and that their production constitutes an 11th stage of mineral evolution. Subsequently, Hazen and co-authors catalogued 208 minerals that are officially recognized by the IMA but are primarily or exclusively the result of human activities. Most of these have formed in association with mining. In addition, some were created when metal artefacts sank and interacted with the seafloor. A few would probably not be officially recognized today but are allowed to remain in the catalog; these include two (niobocarbide and tantalcarbide) that may have been a hoax.

Hazen and co-authors identified three ways that humans have had a large impact on the distribution and diversity of minerals. The first is through manufacture. A long list of synthetic crystals have mineral equivalents, including synthetic gems, ceramics, brick, cement and batteries. Many more have no mineral equivalent; over 180,000 inorganic crystalline compounds are listed in the Inorganic Crystal Structure Database. For mining or building of infrastructure, humans have redistributed rocks, sediments and minerals on a scale rivalling that of glaciation, and valuable minerals have been redistributed and juxtaposed in ways that would not occur naturally.

Origin of life

Over two-thirds of mineral species owe their existence to life, but life may also owe its existence to minerals. They may have been needed as templates to bring organic molecules together; as catalysts for chemical reactions; and as metabolites. Two prominent theories for the origin of life involve clays and transition metal sulfides. Another theory argues that calcium-borate minerals such as colemanite and borate, and possibly also molybdate, may have been needed for the first ribonucleic acid (RNA) to form. Other theories require less common minerals such as mackinawite or greigite. A catalog of the minerals that were formed during the Hadean Eon includes clay minerals and iron and nickel sulfides, including mackinawite and greigite; but borates and molybdates were unlikely.

Minerals may also have been necessary to the survival of early life. For example, quartz is more transparent than other minerals in sandstones. Before life developed pigments to protect it from damaging ultraviolet rays, a thin layer of quartz could shield it while allowing enough light through for photosynthesis. Phosphate minerals may also have been important to early life. Phosphorus is one of the essential elements in molecules such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an energy carrier found in all living cells; RNA and DNA; and cell membranes. Most of Earth's phosphorus is in the core and mantle. The most likely mechanism for making it available to life would be the creation of phosphates such as apatite through fractionation, followed by weathering to release the phosphorus. This may have required plate tectonics.

Further research

Cinnabar (red) on dolomite

Since the original paper on mineral evolution, there have been several studies of minerals of specific elements, including uranium, thorium, mercury, carbon, beryllium, and the clay minerals. These reveal information about different processes; for example, uranium and thorium are heat producers while uranium and carbon indicate oxidation state. The records reveal episodic bursts of new minerals such as those during the Boring Billion, as well as long periods where no new minerals appeared. For example, after a jump in diversity during the assembly of Columbia, there were no new mercury minerals between 1.8 Ga and 600 million years ago. This remarkably long hiatus is attributed to a sulfide-rich ocean, which led to rapid deposition of the mineral cinnabar.

Most of the mineral evolution papers have looked at the first appearance of minerals, but one can also look at the age distribution of a given mineral. Millions of zircon crystals have been dated, and the age distributions are nearly independent of where the crystals are found (e.g., igneous rocks, sedimentary or metasedimentary rocks or modern river sands). They have highs and lows that are linked with the supercontinent cycle, although it is not clear whether this is due to changes in subduction activity or preservation.

Other studies have looked at time variations of mineral properties such as isotope ratios, chemical compositions, and relative abundances of minerals, although not under the rubric of "mineral evolution".

History

For most of its history, mineralogy had no historical component. It was concerned with classifying minerals according to their chemical and physical properties (such as the chemical formula and crystal structure) and defining conditions for stability of a mineral or group of minerals. However, there were exceptions where publications looked at the distribution of ages of minerals or of ores. In 1960, Russell Gordon Gastil found cycles in the distribution of mineral dates. Charles Meyer, finding that the ores of some elements are distributed over a wider time span than others, attributed the difference to the effects of tectonics and biomass on the surface chemistry, particularly free oxygen and carbon. In 1979, A. G. Zhabin introduced the concept of stages of mineral evolution in the Russian-language journal Doklady Akademii Nauk and in 1982, N. P. Yushkin noted the increasing complexity of minerals over time near the surface of the Earth. Then, in 2008, Hazen and colleagues introduced a much broader and more detailed vision of mineral evolution. This was followed by a series of quantitative explorations of the evolution of various mineral groups. These led in 2015 to the concept of mineral ecology, the study of distributions of minerals in space and time.

In April 2017, the Natural History Museum in Vienna opened a new permanent exhibit on mineral evolution.