Mineralization, Figure 1 Idealized illustration showing the five types of mineralization in estuarine environments, ranging from the
biological production of inorganic compounds and ions from organic substances facilitated by microbial decay and transformations
(biological mineralization), the biological production of mineral substances within and external to living organisms
(biomineralization), the biologically mediated production of mineral substances (biomediated mineralization), and the inorganic
precipitation of minerals from water (geological primary mineralization) to the alteration of existing minerals (geological
mineralization as diagenesis). Only selected examples of each of the various mineralization types and their products are shown.
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MINERALIZATION