What can we learn from nature? The study of the physical, chemical and structural properties of well-known minerals in the geo- and biosphere creates new opportunities for innovative applications in technology, environment or medicine. This book highlights today's research on outstanding minerals such as garnets used as components in all solid state batteries, delafossite formation during wastewater treatment, monazites for the immobilization of high level radioactive waste or hyroxylapatite as bioactive material for medical implant applications. Contents Part I: High-technology materials Lithium ion-conducting oxide garnets Olivine-type battery materials Natural and synthetic zeolites Microstructure analysis of chalcopyrite-type CuInSe2 and kesterite-type Cu2ZnSnSe4 absorber layers in thin film solar cells Surface-engineered silica via plasma polymer deposition Crystallographic symmetry analysis in NiTi shape memory alloys Part II: Environmental mineralogy Gold, silver, and copper in the geosphere and anthroposphere: can industrial wastewater act as an anthropogenic resource? Applied mineralogy for recovery from the accident of Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station Phosphates as safe containers for radionuclides Immobilization of high-level waste calcine (radwaste) in perovskites Titanate ceramics for high-level nuclear waste immobilization Part III: Biomineralization, biomimetics, and medical mineralogy Patterns of mineral organization in carbonate biological hard materials Sea urchin spines as role models for biological design and integrative structures Nacre: a biomineral, a natural biomaterial, and a source of bio-inspiration Hydroxylapatite coatings: applied mineralogy research in the bioceramics field A procedure to apply spectroscopic techniques in the investigation of silica-bearing industrial materials

It is widely accepted that there is a relationship between ice volume and the solar insolation in summer in the northern hemisphere. The Earth's glacial cycles are driven by cyclic changes in the Earth's orbital elements. This conclusion is based on the strong coherence between the approx. 20000 and 40000 year spectral components of ice volume and insolation (Milankovitch-curve) records. These frequencies are determined by the variation of the obliquity of the Earth's axis and by its position relative to the Earth's orbit around the sun. The degree of sum mer insolation on the Earth's northern Hemisphere is believed to be relevant to climate because the North Atlantic is where cold saline water is being formed. Present day deep water circulation is driven by salt build-up in due to net evapora tion. In contrast, in the North Pacific precipitation exceeds evaporation. Thus, deep water transfers a surplus of salt from the N. Atlantic to the North Pacific. This surface water delivers also oxygen to the deep ocean. In contrast, upwelling deep water transfers nutrients from the deep ocean to the surface water. Today the time of renewal of deep water is in the order of 1000 years."