Notes on Mineral Evolution

Life, Sentience, and the Anthropocene

Bibliographic Data

ID7763320
AuthorsPaul Gillen (IP Australia, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume8
Issue2
Pages215-234
Publication date2016-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEnvironmental Humanities (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2201-1919 • E-ISSN: 2201-1919
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/22011919-3664324
OpenAlexW2561057077
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited32

Mineral evolution (ME) is a geologic paradigm postulating that Earth’s minerals formed sequentially and have interacted with life forms for billions of years. The evolution of Earth and its minerals is therefore entangled with the evolution of life. This “Provocation” ponders the implications of ME for the environmental humanities in general and for Anthropocene narratives in particular. ME relies on non-Darwinian evolutionary principles. In common with other branches of Earth system science, it also destabilizes prevailing ontological categories. Life becomes more material, matter more alive. This essay suggests that the development of sentience in the Phanerozoic eon exerted an emergent, autonomous influence on the interaction of minerals and life. Conscious human agency and its effects on planetary transformation are therefore the culmination of a very long process. However, the control that our conscious agency can exercise upon planetary transformation is very limited even over human time scales, let alone geologic ones

Agency (philosophy · Anthropocene · Archaeology · Astrobiology · Biology · Darwinism · Deep time · Earth (classical element · Earth science · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Human evolution · Narrative · History · History of Science and Natural History · Origins and Evolution of Life · Philosophy · Space Science and Extraterrestrial Life · Geology · Paleontology

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