LIAO Li-bing¹, WANG Ling², PENG Tong-jiang³

(1. School of Materials Science and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China;
2. College of Materials and Chemistry & Chemical engineering, Chengdu University of Technology , Chengdu 610059, China;
3. Institute of Mineral Materials and Application, Southwest University of Science and Technology, Mianyang 621010, China)

Abstract: As a part of the development of science and technology, mineralogy evolved from a division of geology to an interdisciplinary discipline of earth science, material science and engineering, environmental science, physics, chemistry, and so on., possessing all the characteristics of a first-level discipline. The authors suggest that a new first-level discipline of “mineral science and engineering” should be established. The definition of this new first-level discipline is that “mineral science and engineering” is a scientific discipline that deals with mineral (natural and synthetic) composition, structure, properties, performance, identification, classification, genesis, transformation, application theory and technology. In this paper, the connotation of this definition and the research objects of mineral science and engineering are discussed, and the sub-disciplines of “mineral science and engineering” are also proposed.

Keywords: mineral science and engineering; discipline; definition; connotation; research object

E-mail: lbliao@cugb.edu.cn

ACTA MINERALOGICA SINICA Vol. 35, No. 1, 2015, Page 1-6