Volume 11 of Reviews in Mineralogy attempts to synthesize our present understanding of certain
aspects of the mineralogy and chemistry of the rock-forming carbonates. This review follows by
ten years a major assessment of (sedimentary) carbonate minerals by Lippmann (1973). There is
only minor overlap of subject material and I hope that this difference reflects fairly how
this field has developed.In this volume some of the papers are general (i.e. those addressing
crystal chemistry and phase relations) and they provide overviews of a fundamental nature and
are of interest to many. Others are more specialized in coverage and generally reflect the
different approaches used in carbonate geochemistry. The final chapter introduces transmission
electron microscopy a relatively new and powerful technique for mineralogical research that
has great potential in carbonate research.
