Elements Magazine (2026)

11/08/2026

🦠🪨 For more than 3.5 billion years, stromatolites have recorded the interwoven history of life and our planet. Discover what these microbial structures reveal about ancient environments, Earth’s oxygenation, modern ecosystems, and the search for life beyond Earth in the newest issue of Elements: STROMATOLITES AND OTHER MICROBIALITES (vol. 22, no. 4). 🪨🦠

GUEST EDITORS: Sebastian Viehmann (Leibniz University Hannover, Germany), Karim Benzerara (Sorbonne Université, France), and Simon V. Hohl (Tongji University, China)

PRINCIPAL EDITOR: Carol Frost (University of Wyoming, USA)

FEATURED ARTICLES:

🦠🪨 The Story of Stromatolites—Mineralising Ecosystems and Geo-Biological Archives – By Laurane Fogret (Naturalis Biodiversity Center), Pierre Sansjofre (Sorbonne Université), Simon V. Hohl (Tongji University), Sebastian Viehmann (Leibniz University Hannover), and Karim Benzerara (Sorbonne Université)

🦠🪨 Diversity, Mechanisms of Formation, and Predicted Fate of Modern Microbialites on a Rapidly Changing Planet – By Nina Zeyen (University of Geneva), Jeanne Caumartin (Sorbonne Université; Université Paris-Saclay), and Karim Benzerara (Sorbonne Université)

🦠🪨 Microbialite-Associated Microbial Communities, Present and Past – By Miguel Iniesto, David Moreira, and Purificación López-García (Université Paris-Saclay)

🦠🪨 Stromatolites Through Earth’s Early History – By Axel Hofmann, Anna Molekwa, and Frantz Ossa Ossa (University of Johannesburg; Khalifa University of Science and Technology)

🦠🪨 Exploring the Stable Isotope Record of Stromatolites – By Christophe Thomazo, Robin Havas, and Alice Pellerin (Université Bourgogne Europe), and Johanna Marin-Carbonne (University of Lausanne)

🦠🪨 Stromatolites as Recorders of Major Oxygenation Events and Biogeochemical Metal Cycling Through Earth’s History – By Sylvie Bruggmann (University of Lausanne), Sebastian Viehmann (Leibniz University Hannover), Indrani Mukherjee (University of New South Wales), and Simon V. Hohl (Tongji University)

Read the full issue: elementsmagazine.org/

💫 Join a participating society and get Elements delivered to your door—six geo-educational magazines per year and full access to professional membership benefits. 🌎

20/06/2026

💎🌎⚡ From ancient tools and gemstones to solar panels and computer chips—explore the many facets of SiO2 in the latest issue of Elements: QUARTZ (vol. 22, no. 3). ⚡🌎💎

Silica (SiO2) is ubiquitous on Earth and has become integral to daily life. Although it has a simple chemical formula, the SiO2 system is very complex, with at least 15 known modifications, i.e., mineral phases with the same stoichiometric composition but different crystal structures. Quartz (trigonal, low-temperature α-quartz) is the most important silica polymorph in nature and occurs as a common constituent of magmatic, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks. In modern industry, both single crystals and polycrystalline quartz materials are used, for example, as high-purity natural or synthetic quartz crystals, quartz sands, refractory materials, or as an ore for silicon metal crucial for photovoltaics, semiconductor, and steel production, and found in gyroscopes of satellites, special lenses, precision mirror substrates, and other high-tech equipment. This thematic issue of Elements provides a comprehensive overview of quartz occurrence and the silicate cycle, the role of quartz in the technological transformation of modern society, quartz and silica gemstones, and how quartz bears a wealth of genetic information that can serve as important mineralogical and geochemical indicators for geological and ore-forming processes.

FEATURED ARTICLES:

💎🔬 Quartz and SiO2—Simple Yet Exciting – By Yuanming Pan (University of Saskatchewan, Canada), Jens Götze (TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany), Axel Müller (University of Oslo, Norway), and Gerald Raab (Dalhousie University, Canada)

🌍🪐 The Narrative of Quartz and Silica in the Earth and Other Planetary Bodies – By Axel Müller (University of Oslo, Norway), Andreas Audétat (University of Bayreuth, Germany), Thomas Monecke (Colorado School of Mines, USA), Karel Breiter (Czech Academy of Science, Czech Republic), and Rune B. Larsen (NTNU Trondheim, Norway)

⏳🏞️ Quartz—Hour-Glass for Surface Processes – By Gerald Raab (Dalhousie University, Canada), Roland Stalder (University of Innsbruck, Austria), Sumiko Tsukamoto (LIAG Institute for Applied Geophysics; University of Tübingen, Germany), and Georgina E. King (University of Lausanne, Switzerland)

⚡💻 Quartz-derived Solutions for Renewable Energy Production, Semiconductors, and Beyond – By Axel Müller (University of Oslo, Norway) and Reiner Haus (Dorfner ANZAPLAN GmbH, Germany)

🏺🔬 Microcrystalline and Amorphous Silica: Materials that Shaped Humanity – By Elisabetta Gliozzo (University of Florence, Italy), Peter J. Heaney (Penn State University, USA), Yuanming Pan (University of Saskatchewan, Canada), and Carole C. Perry (Nottingham Trent University, UK)

💎✨ The SiO2 Gemstone Family – By Jens Götze (TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany), Yuanming Pan (University of Saskatchewan, Canada), and Eloïse Gaillou (PSL University, Musée de Minéralogie, France)

Read the full issue: elementsmagazine.org/

💫 Join a participating society and get Elements delivered to your door—six geo-educational magazines per year and full access to professional membership benefits. 🌎

29/04/2026

🌍💎🔬Learn how atomic-scale properties shape global-scale processes in the latest issue of Elements: MINERAL PHYSICS APPLIED TO EARTH AND PLANETARY SCIENCES (vol. 22, no. 2). 🔬💎🌍

Understanding the physical and transport properties of minerals is essential for deciphering geophysical and planetary processes. Building on Haüy’s early recognition of the link between crystal structure and macroscopic behavior, modern spectroscopic, thermal, mechanical, electrical, and magnetic techniques now probe these properties across all scales—from atoms to planets. This issue of Elements explores how minerals respond to external fields, revealing clues about their past and the dynamic processes shaping Earth and other planetary bodies. It presents key concepts in mineral physics alongside recent technological advances that enhance our ability to study planetary interiors. Through selected research areas, the volume illustrates how this knowledge deepens our understanding of planetary evolution and highlights the major scientific challenges that lie ahead.

FEATURED ARTICLES:

🌍💎🔬 From Atoms to Planets: The Physics of Minerals Across Scales – By Jennifer M. Jackson (California Institute of Technology, USA) and Patrick Cordier (Université de Lille and Institut Universitaire de France, France)

🌍💎🔬 Illuminated Worlds: How Spectroscopy Lights the Way in Earth and Planetary Sciences – By Natalia V. Solomatova (Miraterra Technologies and Arca Climate Technologies, Canada), Eva L. Scheller (Stanford University, USA), and Samantha K. Trumbo (University of California San Diego, USA)

🌍💎🔬 The Heat is On: Thermal Transport and Melting – By Jennifer M. Jackson (California Institute of Technology, USA), Vasilije V. Dobrosavljevic (Carnegie Institution for Science, USA), and Kenji Ohta (Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan)

🌍💎🔬Carrying the Planet on their Backs: How Minerals Respond to Stress – By Mattia Luca Mazzucchelli (Université de Lausanne, Switzerland), Patrick Cordier (Université de Lille and Institut Universitaire de France, France), and Claudia A. Trepmann (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany)

🌍💎🔬Plugged-in Planet: Accessing the Interior of the Earth and other Terrestrial Bodies via Electrical Properties – By Anne Pommier (Carnegie Institution for Science, USA), Michael J. Tauber (University of California San Diego, USA), Kate Selway (University of Tasmania, Australia), and Daniel Heyner (Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany)

🌍💎🔬Paleomagnetic Recording at the Grain Scale – By Roger Fu (Harvard University, USA) and Richard J. Harrison (University of Cambridge, UK)

Read the full issue: elementsmagazine.org/

💫 Join a participating society and get Elements delivered to your door—that's six geo-educational magazines per year and full access to professional membership benefits. 🌎

07/02/2026

🌍🌡️ Discover the processes—and uncertainties—that shape Earth’s long-term climate regulation in Elements’ new issue: EARTH'S CARBON CYCLE THERMOSTAT: BEYOND THE TEXTBOOK MODEL (February 2026; vol. 22, no. 1). 🌡️🌍

Earth’s geological carbon cycle is central to both climate and life. It is generally considered to act as a “thermostat,” regulating climate and preventing global mean temperatures from fluctuating wildly. The textbook model of this regulation involves variations in solid Earth degassing rates, leading to changes in atmospheric CO2 concentrations, surface temperature, and precipitation; in turn, these modulate the rate of alkalinity production via continental silicate weathering, which changes the rate of carbonate mineral formation, thereby rebalancing the carbon cycle. The articles in this issue highlight many alternative or additional mechanisms that may be equally or more important in regulating Earth’s carbon cycle. This issue highlights advances in our understanding of the regulation of the long-term carbon cycle, but also emphasizes the large uncertainties that still remain for both the modern day and in the past: what is the rate of carbon degassing? What are the relative roles of continental and seafloor weathering in regulating the carbon cycle? What fraction of the alkalinity added to the ocean plays a role in the carbon cycle? What role does organic carbon play in the carbon cycle? We are still far from having a complete understanding of the fundamental controls of Earth’s life-support system, but we clearly need to move beyond the textbook model.

FEATURED ARTICLES:

🌍🌡️ How Well Do We Understand the Geological Carbon Cycle? – By Laurence A. Coogan (University of Victoria, Canada), Kimberly V. Lau (Penn State University, USA), and Jeremy K.C. Rugenstein (Colorado State University, USA)

🌍🌡️ Igneous and Metamorphic CO2 Sources: How Large and How Variable? – By Emily M. Stewart (Florida State University, USA) and Kei Shimizu (NASA, USA)

🌍🌡️ Continental Weathering as Climate Stabilizer – By Gaojun Li (Nanjing University, China) and Gen K. Li (University of California, Santa Barbara, USA)

🌍🌡️ The Role of Seawater Interaction with the Oceanic Floor in the Carbon Cycle – By Wolfgang Bach (University of Bremen, Germany) and Alexander Diehl (University of Bremen, Germany)

🌍🌡️ The Fate of Ocean Alkalinity: Carbonate Formation and Reverse Weathering Reactions – By Shaily Rahman (University of Colorado Boulder, USA) and Elizabeth J. Trower (University of Colorado Boulder, USA)

🌍🌡️ Burned or Buried: What Controls the Long-Term Preservation of Organic Carbon? – By Sandra Arndt (Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium) and Dominik Hülse (University of Bremen, Germany)

Read the full issue:
elementsmagazine.org/
pubs.geoscienceworld.org/elements

💫 Join a participating society and get Elements delivered to your door—six geo-educational magazines per year and full access to professional membership benefits. 🌎

12/12/2025

Limited Supply: Request Free Classroom Copies of Elements Magazine — Now Shipping Worldwide

Elements is an international magazine of mineralogy, geochemistry, and petrology jointly published by 18 professional societies in the geosciences. In Fall 2025, a print press error affected the cover of the Elements issue “Sample Return Through the Ages” (vol. 21, no. 5), in which two cover images were incorrectly rendered during production, resulting in a misprinted cover.

Although the interior scientific content is fully correct, the magazine’s leadership elected to proceed with a corrected reprint. This decision has left us with a surplus of misprinted copies. Rather than recycle them, we are making these copies available for outreach, education, conferences, workshops, society booths, student programs, and departmental activities.

This 64-page thematic issue provides a comprehensive overview of mineralogical, petrological, and geochemical insights gained from extraterrestrial samples returned by both crewed and robotic missions. It includes articles covering the Moon, Mars, asteroids, comets, and icy worlds, as well as news from Elements’ participating societies—offering students and early-career scientists a window into the broader MGP community.

You can request a box of 25 copies for only $20 within the United States, which covers U.S. shipping—an exceptional opportunity, as a box of 25 magazines has a wholesale value of approximately $500. The magazines themselves are free. We are also pleased to now offer international shipping options, making these classroom sets available worldwide.

These sets are ideal for:
~ In-class guided reading and discussion
~ Article-based assignments or short research projects
~ Project-based learning on planetary science or geochemistry
~ Outreach and recruitment events
~ Free giveaways or promotional materials at conferences, workshops, and society booths
~ Undergraduate clubs and seminar series
~ Summer programs
~ Community colleges
~ Mineral and rock clubs
~ High-school STEM teachers and enrichment programs

Request form: www.elementsmagazine.org/classroom

There is also an option to sponsor a classroom by covering shipping costs for educators who request financial assistance. Educators needing support may check the waitlist box on the form.

Thank you for helping us turn an unexpected setback into a valuable opportunity for learning and outreach!

With best wishes,
The Elements Editorial Team

05/12/2025

🌍💥Trace the tectonic drama of Pangea’s birth in Elements’ new issue: THE VARISCAN OROGENY IN EUROPE – UNDERSTANDING SUPERCONTINENT FORMATION (December 2025; vol. 21, no. 6).💥🌍

The Variscan orogen formed between 380 and 300 million years ago through several accretionary and collisional cycles, culminating with the construction of the Pangea supercontinent. This process occurred via sequential opening and closure of oceanic basins, synchronous detachment of Gondwana-derived continental ribbons, and their outboard amalgamation onto the Laurussia margin. The Variscan orogen is rather unique compared with other orogenic belts on Earth: its overthickened and dominantly magmatic crust in the central belt, surprisingly minor mantle involvement in the magmatic and geodynamic processes, coherent and pulsed magmatism along the collision suture, and its complex accretionary history. Because its final product, Pangea, is the youngest and best-understood supercontinent on Earth, the Variscan orogeny offers clues for understanding the mechanisms of supercontinent formation.

FEATURED ARTICLES:

💥 Variscan Orogeny: A Three Oceans Problem – By Karel Schulmann (Université de Strasbourg; Czech Geological Survey), José-Ramón Martínez-Catalán (Universidad de Salamanca), and Urs Schaltegger (University of Geneva)

💥 Modeling the Variscan Orogeny – By Taras Gerya (ETH Zürich) and Petra Maierová (Czech Geological Survey)

💥 Extent and Role of Cratonic Lithosphere in the Variscan Orogeny – By Stanislaw Mazur (Polish Academy of Sciences), Stephen Collett (Czech Geological Survey), Imma Palomeras (Universidad de Salamanca; Uppsala University), Christian Schiffer (Uppsala University), and Olivier Vanderhaeghe (Université de Toulouse)

💥 Evolution and Structure of the European Variscan Lithospheric Mantle – By Lukáš Ackerman (Czech Academy of Sciences), L. Gordon Medaris, Jr. (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Andréa Tommasi (Université de Montpellier), and Alain Vauchez (Université de Montpellier)

💥 Granites and the Nature of the Variscan Crust – By Jean-François Moyen (Université Jean-Monnet), Alexandra Guy (Czech Geological Survey), Patrizia Fiannacca (Università di Catania), Vojtěch Janoušek (Czech Geological Survey), Carlos Villaseca (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), and Puy Ayarza Arribas (Universidad de Salamanca)

💥 Assembling Pangaea – The Complex Morphology of the Laurussia-Gondwana Collision – By J. Brendan Murphy (St. Francis Xavier University), R. Damian Nance (Ohio University and Yale University), Karel Schumann (Université de Strasbourg; Czech Geological Survey), Yvette D. Kuiper (Colorado School of Mines), and José R. Martínez Catalán (Universidad de Salamanca)

Read the full issue:
https://www.elementsmagazine.org
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/elements

💫 Join a participating society and get Elements delivered to your door—six geo-educational magazines per year and full access to professional membership benefits. 🌎

03/12/2025

Limited Offer: Request Free Classroom Copies of Elements Magazine

Elements is an international magazine of mineralogy, geochemistry, and petrology jointly published by 18 professional societies in the geosciences. In Fall 2025, a print press error affected the cover of the Elements issue “Sample Return Through the Ages” (vol. 21, no. 5), in which two cover images were incorrectly rendered during production, resulting in a misprinted cover.

Although the interior scientific content is fully correct, the magazine’s leadership elected to proceed with a corrected reprint—which has left us with a surplus of misprinted copies. Rather than recycle them, we are making these copies available for outreach, education, conferences, workshops, society booths, student programs, and departmental activities.

This 64-page thematic issue provides a comprehensive overview of mineralogical, petrological, and geochemical insights gained from extraterrestrial samples returned by both crewed and robotic missions. It includes articles covering the Moon, Mars, asteroids, comets, and icy worlds, as well as news from Elements’ participating societies—offering students and early-career scientists a window into the broader MGP community.

You can request a box of 25 copies for only $20, which covers U.S. shipping—an exceptional opportunity, as a box of 25 magazines has a wholesale value of $500. The magazines themselves are free.

These sets are ideal for:
~ In-class guided reading and discussion
~ Article-based assignments or short research projects
~ Project-based learning on planetary science or geochemistry
~ Outreach and recruitment events
~ Free giveaways or promotional materials at conferences, workshops, and society booths
~ Undergraduate clubs and seminar series
~ Summer programs
~ Community colleges
~ Mineral and rock clubs
~ High-school STEM teachers and enrichment programs

Request form: www.elementsmagazine.org/classroom

If you would like more than 25 copies or need international shipping, please use the Special Requests / Comments field on the form; we will provide a separate shipping quote. There is also an option to sponsor a classroom by covering shipping costs for educators who request financial assistance. Educators needing support may check the waitlist box on the form.

Thank you for helping us turn an unexpected setback into a valuable opportunity for learning and outreach!

With best wishes,
The Elements Editorial Team

15/10/2025

🚀Journey through decades of discovery with Elements’ new issue: SAMPLE RETURN THROUGH THE AGES (October 2025; vol. 21, no. 5) 🔬https://www.elementsmagazine.org

Sample return missions allow us to not only hold pieces of distant worlds in the palms of our hands, but also to probe the origins of the Solar System and our own existence. In the last six decades, precious samples—astromaterials—have been retrieved directly from the Moon, asteroids, a comet’s tail, and even solar wind. These endeavors have provided unique insights into the geological and chemical histories of a wide variety of celestial bodies, including our home, Earth. In the next decade, humanity will return to the Moon for the first time this century and set its collective sight farther afield to collect samples from Mars and its moon Phobos. Beyond that lies the frontier of sample return—icy bodies—a global endeavor that will require the development of advanced technologies and international partnerships to return astromaterials from the outer reaches of our Solar System. We are living through the golden era of sample return missions; this issue of Elements demonstrates the power of mineralogical, petrological, and geochemical studies of oftentimes small amounts of material to learn about the formation and evolution of planetary bodies, the Solar System, and our place in it.

FEATURED ARTICLES:

🛰️ To See a World in a Grain of Sand – By Jessica J. Barnes (University of Arizona, USA) and Jemma Davidson (ARES, NASA Johnson Space Center, USA)

🛰️ It’s Not Just a Phase: Over 50 Years of Lunar Sample Science – By Katherine Joy (University of Manchester, UK), Jessica Barnes (University of Arizona, USA), Xiaochao Che (Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, China), and Bradley Jolliff (Washington University in St. Louis, USA)

🛰️ Seeing Red: Retrieving Rocks from Mars and Phobos – By Arya Udry (University of Nevada, Las Vegas, USA), Amanda Ostwald (Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and Michigan State University, USA), and Tomohiro Usui (JAXA, Japan)

🛰️ One’s Trash is Another’s Treasure: Cosmic Rubble Piles – By Hikaru Yabuta (Hiroshima University, Japan), Timothy McCoy (Smithsonian Institution, USA), and Conel O.’D. Alexander (Carnegie Institution of Washington, USA)

🛰️ Space Weathering: Clear with a Chance of Solar Wind and Micrometeoroid Showers – By Michelle Thompson (Purdue University, USA), Amy Jurewicz (Arizona State University and Dartmouth College, USA), and Takaaki Noguchi (Kyoto University, Japan)

🛰️ Ice to Meet You: Sampling Cold Bodies – By Perry Gerakines (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA), Stefanie Milam (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, USA), and Penny Wozniakiewicz (University of Kent, UK)

Read the full issue: https://www.elementsmagazine.org

💫 Join a participating society and get Elements delivered to your door—six geo-educational magazines per year and full access to professional membership benefits. 🌎

15/10/2025

✨In case you missed it! ✨
While our website was briefly offline, several exciting articles on Re-Os quietly made their debut — and they’re too good to overlook. Don’t miss these special papers:

📘 The Re-Os Revolution: Mighty Messages From Two of Earth’s Rarest Elements — By Laurie Reisberg and Holly Stein

📘 Sulfides and Their Little Darling, Molybdenite — By Holly Stein, Aaron Zimmerman, Gang Yang, Robert A. Creaser, and Katsuhiko Suzuki

📘 Reel-to-Reel Re-Os Records: Earth System Transactions Preserved in Sediments — By Brian Kendall, Robert A. Creaser, Judith L. Hannah, Vineet Goswami, and Gyana Tripathy

📘Osmium and Tungsten Isotopes Reveal Earth’s Youthful Exuberance —
By Igor S. Puchtel, Richard J. Walker, Sonja Aulbach, and Vickie C. Bennett

📘 The Osmium Isotope Perspective on the Dynamics of the Post-Archean Mantle — By Ambre Luguet, Elisabeth Widom, and Jingao Liu

🔗 Read them all here: https://www.elementsmagazine.org/re-os-clock-with-clout/

Stay tuned — more exciting new issues of Elements are on their way soon!

08/09/2025

Elements: An International Magazine for Geochemistry, Mineralogy, and Petrology is soliciting thematic proposals for its 2027 publication lineup.

The next submission deadline is September 25, 2025.

Submission guidelines and a proposal template can be found at https://www.elementsmagazine.org/publish-in-elements/

A thematic proposal is a short document that includes:
-- Proposed issue title

-- Proposed guest editor name(s) and full contact information

-- Overall scope (1–2 paragraphs describing the topic and why it is important to cover in Elements)

-- Proposed articles (1 introduction + 5 chapters) with brief yet detailed descriptions, proposed authors, and their institutions. Please note that author confirmation is not required for proposal submission.

-- Summary of related coverage previously published elsewhere, if applicable

Questions? Seeking feedback on a draft proposal?
Contact [email protected].

Annual proposal deadlines: March 25 and September 25.

We thank you in advance for your initiative!

Elements Magazine

11/08/2026

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