Welcome to the Mineral Properties Database (MPD)!

The Mineral Properties Database (MPD) was created with the goal of better understanding the multidimensional, multivariate trends amongst mineral species and their relationships to geologic materials, preservational and sampling biases, and geologic, biologic, and planetary processes. Minerals are incredibly information-rich, with chemical and physical attributes recording their astrophysical, geological and/or biological conditions during formation and alteration. While this fact is well-known, the relationship between a mineral’s measurable features and its history is not always so clear, largely due to the complexity and dimensionality of these systems. Therefore, advanced analytics and machine learning is required for and enables us to predict the astrophysical, geological, or geochemical past of a mineral sample and, for select mineral phases, can also predict whether or not life was involved – offering a robust biomarker for planetary exploration. However, the largest hurdle remains: the lack of compiled, accessible, machine-readable data resources - this will all change with the MPD and its associated databases (including the Evolutionary System of Mineralogy Database and the Planetary Systems Biochemistry database).The MPD contains detailed information about the properties of each International Mineralogical Associated (IMA) approved mineral species, including oldest and youngest known ages (from the Mineral Evolution Database) with the associated mindat.org localities, oxidation state, structural complexity, color, number of localities, year and method of discovery, and paragenetic mode. These data, coupled with those of the MED, offer the opportunity to study changes in Earth and other planetary systems through deep time and serve as the basis for mineral network analysis, evolution, and ecology studies.