Large amounts of flue gas desulfurization (FGD) and fluidized bed combustion (FBC) by-products from burning coal, consisting primarily of gypsum, are available for potential use as a soil amendment. However, information is limited on longer-term changes in chemical and physical properties induced over time and over small depth increments of the upper soil profile after applying these amendments...

Species of Haliotis (abalone) show high variety in structure and mineralogy of the shell. One of the European species (Haliotis tuberculata) in particular has an unusual shell structure in which calcite and aragonite coexist at a microscale with small patches of aragonite embedded in larger calcitic zones. A detailed examination of the boundary between calcite and aragonite using analytical mic...

The carbonate mineralogy of the calcified hydrozoan family Stylasteridae is controlled largely by phylogenetic rather than environmental factors. In a comprehensive study— the first of its kind—of the mineralogy of almost an entire family of calcareous organisms, this finding is well documented. X-ray diffraction analyses of 24 of 25 genera indicate that the skeletons of most species analyzed (...

Abstract The initial acquisition of calcium carbonate polymorphs (aragonite and calcite) at the onset skeletal biomineralization by disparate metazoans across Ediacaran-Cambrian transition is thought to be directly influenced Earth's seawater chemistry. It has been presumed that animal clades first acquired mineralized skeletons during so-called “aragonite sea” latest Ediacaran earliest Cambria...