Timeline of the discovery and classification of minerals

Georgius Agricola is considered the 'father of mineralogy'. Nicolas Steno founded the stratigraphy, the geology characterizes the rocks in each layer and the mineralogy characterizes the minerals in each rock. The chemical elements were discovered in identified minerals and with the help of the identified elements the mineral crystal structure could be described. One milestone was the discovery of the geometrical law of crystallization by René Just Haüy, a further development of the work by Nicolas Steno and Jean-Baptiste L. Romé de l'Isle. Important contributions came from some Saxon "Bergraths"/ Freiberg Mining Academy: Johann F. Henckel, Abraham Gottlob Werner and his students. Other milestones were the notion that metals are elements too and the periodic table of the elements by Dmitri Ivanovich Mendeleev. The overview of the organic bonds by Kekulé was necessary to understand the silicates, first refinements described by Bragg and Machatschki; and it was only possibly to understand a crystal structure with Dalton's atomic theory, the notion of atomic orbital and Goldschmidt's explanations. Specific gravity, streak and X-ray powder diffraction are quite specific for a Nickel-Strunz identifier. Nowadays, non-destructive electron microprobe analysis is used to get the empirical formula of a mineral. Finally, the International Zeolite Association (IZA) took care of the zeolite frameworks.

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