Announcements

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. William Skinner has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the “Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy” Section of Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X) as of June 2022. 

Professor William (Bill) Skinner is a research professor in minerals and resource engineering at the Future Industries Institute (FII) at the University of South Australia (UniSA). He graduated from the University of Melbourne (B.Sc. 1981) and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (Ph.D. 1991), including a period spent with the Australian Antarctic Division (1990-1992). With a background in applied physics—solid state surface science and associated spectroscopies—he has worked in minerals processing and extractive metallurgical research for 30 years at UniSA. His major focus has been on flotation, physical separation and hydrometallurgical processes, and the role of surface chemistry in beneficiation mechanisms. This has included the use of surface analytical spectroscopies (XPS, ToF-SIMS) and various synchrotron radiation techniques, coupled with close collaboration with theoretical modeling groups for the fundamental study of specific mineral surface behavior in processing environments. 

A large percentage of Professor Skinner’s research is direct, applied investigations with industry, focused on processing plant issues and solutions, via long-term, multi-company projects. This includes the flagship AMIRA P260 Flotation series of projects, which has delivered in excess of USD 1.2 billion in returns on investment through process improvements and savings. Professor Skinner has also mentored more than 50 Ph.D. students. 

Professor Skinner is currently the Deputy Director of two major national Australian Research Council (ARC) Centres—the ARC Centre for Enabling the Eco-Beneficiation of Minerals (2020–2027)  (https://coeminerals.org.au/) and the ARC Training Centre for Integrated Operations for Complex Ores (2020–2024) (https://iocr.com.au/). He has published more than 330 refereed book chapters, articles, and conference proceedings. 

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. William Skinner, who shared his vision for the journal with us, as well as his views of the research area and open access publishing: 

Minerals processing, together with the underpinning chemical and physical mechanisms involved in valuable mineral beneficiation, is quite lacking in the open access journal space. The main challenge in making this a reality is in the quality and relevance of articles that are able to contribute to impacts in the industry to meet their challenges in meeting metal demand. Being Section Editor-in-Chief of “Mineral Processing and Extractive Metallurgy” gives me an opportunity to ensure article quality and contribute to the success of the journal and give confidence to researchers that Minerals is the first choice for publishing and exposure of their work. 

Minerals’ raised visibility in recent years opens an opportunity for it to become the leading journal—open access or otherwise—in minerals processing. Quality, through rigorous review processes and appropriate reviewer selection, is the key to elevating Minerals in the journal landscape. Quality of articles leads to enhanced relevance and citations, with associated metrics following. 

The world needs minerals and metals like never before to meet current demand and to fuel the transition to renewable energy, advanced technology, agriculture, health and infrastructure. These minerals and metals must be extracted from ever-diminishing ore grades with finer-grained, more complex mineralogy. Moreover, physical, environmental, energy and water consumption footprints must be reduced in order to acquire a license to operate a mine. Our role as researchers is to focus on the technical challenges and underlying science of achieving these goals. I would certainly hope to see many more submissions to Minerals that are closely linked to such desired outcomes. 

I fully believe that the open access model is the surest way to ensure quality research is maximally exposed to academia and industry alike. Moreover, timelines for the real implementation of processing and extractive breakthroughs will be shorter. Open access compliance is also fast becoming the norm for research funding compliance, ensuring that the outcomes of publicly funded research, for example, are freely available to the taxpayer. 

We wish Prof. Dr. William Skinner every success in his new position, and we look forward to his contributions to the journal.

MDPI’s Young Investigator Awards recognize promising junior researchers, acknowledge their contributions, and enhance communication among scientists. We are proud to present the winners for the year 2021 in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category. The winners were selected by the journals’ editors.

We warmly congratulate the awarded young investigators for their outstanding contributions. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Atmosphere:

• Shaojie Song, Harvard University, USA

Clean Technologies:

• Francesco Galiano, Institute on Membrane Technology of the National Research Council, Italy

Energies:

• Qilin Wang, University of Technology Sydney, Australia
• Christopher H. T. Lee, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Grace Vincent, Central Queensland University, Australia

Minerals:

• Antony Burnham, Australian National University, Australia

Remote Sensing:

• Celso Henrique Leite Silva Junior, National Institute for Space Research – INPE, Brasil; Agricultural Engineering Department of the State University of Maranhão – UEMA, Brazil

Sustainability:

• Baojie He, Chongqing University, China

Water:

• Stefanos Giannakis, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain

In order to acknowledge our reviewers, who so generously dedicate their time to reviewing papers and demonstrate diligence, professionalism, and timeliness when reviewing manuscripts, MDPI journals regularly offer outstanding reviewer awards to scholars who participate in the peer-review process.

We are proud to recognize winners for the year 2021 in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category for their outstanding contributions among extensive competition by presenting them with an Outstanding Reviewer Award.

We would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the winners on their achievement. MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Atmosphere:

• Hristo Chervenkov, National Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, Bulgaria
• Jouni Räisänen, University of Helsinki, Finland

Climate:

• Piotr F. Borowski, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland

Energies:

• Elena Lucchi, Institute for Renewable Energy, Italy
• Marcin Dębowski, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland
• Miroslav Variny, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia
• Piotr F. Borowski, Warsaw University of Life Sciences, Poland
• Vedran Mrzljak, University of Rijeka, Croatia

Forests:

• Tomasz Oszako, Forest Research Institute, Poland
• Stelian Alexandru Borz, Transilvania University of Brasov, Romania
• Maricar Aguilos, North Carolina State University, USA
• Narayan Bhusal, Seoul National University, South Korea

Geosciences:

• Dave Waters, University of Oxford, UK

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Anuli Njoku, Southern Connecticut State University, USA
• Haruna Musa Moda, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
• Jesús Molina-Mula, University of BalearicIsland, Spain
• Katharina Diehl, Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany
• Katarzyna Tomaszek, Pedagogical University of Kracow, Poland
• Matteo Nioi, University of Cagliari, Italy
• Pablo A. Cantero-Garlito, Universidad de Castilla La Mancha, Spain
• Seoyong Kim, Ajou University, South Korea
• Andrzej Adamski, University of Information Technology and Management, Poland
• Adrian Curto, Faculty of Medicine, University of Salamanca, Spain
• Arkaitz Castañeda Babarro, University of Deusto, Spain
• Álvaro Francisco Lopes De Sousa, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal
• Agata Gabryelska, Medical University of Lodz, Poland
• Ana Reyes Menéndez, Rey Juan Carlos University, Spain
• Bartosz Dalewski, Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, Poland
• Chong Chen, Yamaguchi University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan
• Carla Maria Batista Ferreira Pires, CBIOS-Universidade Lusófona de Humanidades e Tecnologias-Escola de Ciências e Tecnologias da Saúde, Portugal
• Claudia Pisanu, University of Cagliari, Italy
• Emmanuel Obeng-Gyasi, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, USA
• Faisal F. Hakeem, King’s College London, UK
• Francisco Javier Fernández Carrasco, Punta de Europa Hospital, Spain
• Haewon Byeon, Inje University, South Korea
• HuiJun Chih, Curtin University, Australia
• Jerónimo Aragón Vela, University of Granada, Spain
• Joana Costa, University of Aveiro, Portugal,
• Joanne Lloyd, University of Wolverhampton, UK
• José Luis Romero-Bejar, University of Granada, Spain
• Laura Nathans, Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State Scranton, USA
• Mateusz Jankowski, Centre of Postgraduate Medical Education, Poland
• Matteo Riccò, Azienda USL-IRCCS di Reggio Emilia, Italy
• Nicola Döring, Technische Universität Ilmenau, Germany
• Nora Suleiman-Martos, University of Granada, Spain
• Russell Kabir, Anglia Ruskin University, UK
• Roy McConkey, University of Ulster, UK
• Sunhee Kim, Ajou University, South Korea
• Sol García-Germán, Centro de Estudios e Investigación para la Gestión de Riesgos Agrarios y Medioambientalesdisabled, Spain
• Sebastian Rutkowski, Opole University of Technology, Poland
• Tamás Berki, University of Szeged, Hungary
• Terence Moriarty, University of Northern Iowa, USA
• Pedro Antonio Martín Cervantes, University of Almería, La Cañada de San Urbano, Spain

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information:

• Lemenkova Polina, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
• Andrew Newton, Nottingham Trent University, UK
• Dennis Edler, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany
• Lukáš Herman, Masaryk University, Czech Republic
• Marcela Bindzarova Gergelova, Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia

Land:

• Rahul Datta, Mendel University in Brno, Czech Republic
• Dirk H.R. Spennemann, Charles Sturt University, Australia
• Raimundo Jimenez-Ballesta, (Retired recently) Autonoma University of Madrid, Spain

Remote Sensing:

• Veraldo Liesenberg, Santa Catarina State University, Brazil
• Yady Tatiana Solano-Correa, University of Cauca, Colombia
• Francesco Marinello, University of Padova, Italy
• Pedro Melo-Pinto, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Portugal
• Ignacio Bosch, Universitat Politènica de València, Spain
• Juan Soria, University of Valencia, Spain
• Chiman Kwan, Signal Processing, Inc., USA
• Benoit Vozel, University of Rennes, France
• Giuseppe Casula, National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology Unit of Bologna, Italy
• Simone Cosoli, The University of Western Australia, Australia

Resources:

• Maria Economou-Eliopoulos, University of Athens, Greece

Toxics:

• Cynthia Rider, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, USA

We are proud to recognize the winners of MDPI’s 2021 Travel Awards in the “Environmental & Earth Sciences” category for their outstanding presentations and to present them with the prize.

MDPI journals regularly offer travel awards to encourage talented junior scientists to present their latest research at academic conferences in specific fields, which helps to increase their influence.

The winners mentioned below were carefully selected by the journal editors based on an outline of their research and the work to be presented at an academic conference.

We would like to warmly congratulate the Travel Awards winners for the year 2021 and wish them the greatest success with their future research endeavors. MDPI will continue to enhance communication among scientists.

Atmosphere:

• Charbel Harb, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Tech, USA
• Jibran Khan, Aarhus University, Roskilde, Denmark

Climate:

• Agostino Niyonkuru Meroni, Politecnico di Milano, Italy
• Platon Patlakas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece

Energies:

• Nnaemeka Vincent Emodi, University of Tasmania, Australia
• Irene Poza-Casado, Universidad de Valladolid, Spain

Forests:

• Pipiet Larasatie, Oregon State University, USA
• Tania L. Maxwell, French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), France

Hydrology:

• Georgia Papacharalampous, Roma Tre University, Italy
• Mattei Alexandra, University of Corsica, France

International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health:

• Danila Azzolina, University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy
• Kelvin Fong, Yale University, USA
• Levi Frehlich, University of Calgary, Canada‎
• Garyfallos Konstantinoudis, Imperial College London, UK

ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information:

• Junghwan Kim, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
• Xuke Hu, Institute of Data Science, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Germany

Land:

• Álvaro Castilla Beltrán, University of La Laguna, Spain
• Lauren Nerfa, University of Hawaiʻi, USA

Remote Sensing:

• Amen Al-Yaari, Sorbonne University, France
• Meng Lu, Utrecht University, Netherlands

Resources:

• Alessandro Lenci, University of Bologna, Italy
• Evangelia Georgantzia, Liverpool John Moores University, UK

Sustainability:

• Sayyed Rasoul Khayyam Nekouei, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia
• Georgia A. Papacharalampous, Roma Tre University, Italy
• Raquel Filipa da Costa Viveiros, NOVA University of Lisbon, Portugal
• Rajesh Pathak, South Dakota State University, USA

Water:

• Nnanake-Abasi Okon Offiong, University of Uyo, Nigeria
• Tonni Agustiono Kurniawan, Polytechnic of Health, Indonesia
• Shawna Andrea Foo, Arizona State University, USA

The purpose of our Best Paper Awards is to promote and recognize the most impactful contributions published within MDPI journals.

The editors of each journal carefully selected reviews and research papers through a rigorous judging process based on criteria such as the scientific merit, overall impact, and the quality of presentation of the papers published in the journal last year.

We are honored to present the winners in the subject areas of “Environmental & Earth Sciences”, who were selected amongst extensive competition, and congratulate the authors for their outstanding scientific publications.

MDPI will continue to provide support and recognition to the academic community.

Geosciences:

• “Distinguishing between Deep-Water Sediment Facies: Turbidites, Contourites and Hemipelagites”
  by Dorrik Stow and Zeinab Smillie
  Geosciences 2020, 10(2), 68. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10020068
• “Review of Explosive Hydrovolcanism”
  by Károly Németh and Szabolcs Kósiks
  Geosciences 2020, 10(2), 44. https://doi.org/10.3390/geosciences10020044

Remote Sensing:

• “A Review on Deep Learning Techniques for 3D Sensed Data Classification”
  by David Griffiths and Jan Boehm
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1499. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121499
• “Satellite Remote Sensing of Precipitation and the Terrestrial Water Cycle in a Changing Climate”
  by Vincenzo Levizzani and Elsa Cattani
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(19), 2301. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11192301
• “Evaluation of Different Machine Learning Methods and Deep-Learning Convolutional Neural Networks for Landslide Detection”
  by Omid Ghorbanzadeh, Thomas Blaschke, Khalil Gholamnia, Sansar Raj Meena, Dirk Tiede and Jagannath Aryal
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(2), 196. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11020196
• “An Integrated View of Greenland Ice Sheet Mass Changes Based on Models and Satellite Observations”
  by Ruth Mottram, Sebastian B. Simonsen, Synne Høyer Svendsen, Valentina R. Barletta, Louise Sandberg Sørensen, Thomas Nagler, Jan Wuite, Andreas Groh, Martin Horwath, Job Rosier, Anne Solgaard, Christine S. Hvidberg and Rene Forsberg
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(12), 1407. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11121407
• “UAV-Based High Resolution Thermal Imaging for Vegetation Monitoring, and Plant Phenotyping Using ICI 8640 P, FLIR Vue Pro R 640, and thermoMap Cameras”
  by Vasit Sagan, Maitiniyazi Maimaitijiang, Paheding Sidike, Kevin Eblimit, Kyle T. Peterson, Sean Hartling, Flavio Esposito, Kapil Khanal, Maria Newcomb, Duke Pauli, Rick Ward, Felix Fritschi, Nadia Shakoor and Todd Mockler
  Remote Sens. 2019, 11(3), 330. https://doi.org/10.3390/rs11030330

Toxics:

• “A Review of Biomonitoring of Phthalate Exposures”
  by Wang, Yu, Hongkai Zhu and Kurunthachalam Kannan
  Toxics 2019, 7(2), 21; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics7020021
• “Trace Element Uptake by Herbaceous Plants from the Soils at a Multiple Trace Element-Contaminated Site”
  by Nworie, Obinna E., Junhao Qin and Chuxia Lin
  Toxics 2019, 7(1), 3; https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics7010003

Water:

• “Water Quality Indices: Challenges and Application Limits in the Literature”
  by Moez Kachroud, Fabienne Trolard, Mohamed Kefi, Sihem Jebari and Guilhem Bourrié
  Water 2019, 11(2), 361. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11020361
• “A Brief Review of Random Forests for Water Scientists and Practitioners and Their Recent History in Water Resources”
  by Hristos Tyralis, Georgia Papacharalampous and Andreas Langousis
  Water 2019, 11(5), 910. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11050910
• “The Use of Non-Conventional Water Resources as a Means of Adaptation to Drought and Climate Change in Semi-Arid Regions: South-Eastern Spain”
  by Álvaro-Francisco Morote, Jorge Olcina and María Hernández
  Water 2019, 11(1), 93. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11010093
• “Hydrological Effectiveness of an Extensive Green Roof in Mediterranean Climate” 
  by Stefania Anna Palermo, Michele Turco, Francesca Principato and Patrizia Piro
  Water 2019, 11(7), 1378. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11071378
• “Forecasting Groundwater Table in a Flood Prone Coastal City with Long Short-term Memory and Recurrent Neural Networks”
  by Benjamin D. Bowes, Jeffrey M. Sadler, Mohamed M. Morsy, Madhur Behl and Jonathan L. Goodall
  Water 2019, 11(5), 1098. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11051098
• “Effectiveness of Rainwater Harvesting Systems for Flood Reduction in Residential Urban Areas”
  by Gabriele Frenib and Lorena Liuzzo
  Water 2019, 11(7), 1389. https://doi.org/10.3390/w11071389

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

We are pleased to announce that Prof. Dr. Michael S. Zhdanov has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the newly established Section “Mineral Exploration Methods and Applications” in Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X).

Prof. Dr. Michael S. Zhdanov is a Distinguished Professor of Geology and Geophysics at the Department of Geology and Geophysics at the University of Utah, USA. Since joining the University of Utah as a Full Professor in 1993, he has also been appointed the director of the Consortium for Electromagnetic Modeling and Inversion (CEMI). The CEMI consortium has been supported for almost three decades by major national and international oil, gas, and mining corporations, geophysical exploration companies and research centers, and agencies from around the globe. Prof. Dr. Zhdanov's research primarily focuses on the geophysical inverse theory and its application to exploration geophysics. He developed a fundamentally new technique of regularized focusing inversion and imaging of deep geological structures with sharp geometrical boundaries, which are the main targets in mineral exploration. Prof. Dr. Zhdanov also introduced a new approach to the joint inversion of multiphysics data based on Gramian spaces of rock physics parameters and joint minimum entropy principles. The regularized inversion methods developed by Prof. Dr. Zhdanov are widely used in geophysical applications and many other fields that require inversion of the observed data, e.g., in medical imaging, nondestructive testing, electrical engineering, meteorology, and radiophysics. The pioneering work of Prof. Dr. Zhdanov on the 3D inversion of large-scale geophysical survey data, using a moving sensitivity domain, resulted in a paradigm change in the interpretation of the airborne surveys by rigorously producing 3D images of the subsurface geology. He has published almost 20 books and over 300 peer-reviewed scientific papers in leading international journals.

The following is a short Q&A with Prof. Dr. Michael S. Zhdanov, who shared his vision for the Section with us, as well as his views of the research area:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take the role as its Section Editor-in-Chief?

Minerals have become a widely cited journal over the recent years thanks to the excellent work of its editorial staff and the high professional level of the Editorial Board. The scientific appeal of the journal covers the topics much broader than one could expect based on the short name “Minerals”. I anticipate that having a special section dedicated to mineral exploration methods would attract more researchers and make their results freely available to a wide international audience, especially to many young researchers.

2. What is your vision for the Section?

The Section aims to attract papers related to all aspects of exploration for mineral resources, including geological, geophysical, geochemical methods, and satellite imagery. In addition, we want to invite contributions focusing on a novel mineral exploration methodology or presenting the case studies where the established or innovative techniques were successfully used. Finally, the Section may become a forum for discussing the current state of the art and recent advances in mineral exploration.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?

The development of effective methods for mineral exploration and their practical application represents a very active and rapidly changing research field. I believe that the joint inversion and integrated interpretation of multiphysics data will play an important role in this development in the future. Our Section will welcome publications on these topics, as well as on improvements in existing methods and examples of their successful applications for mineral discoveries.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?

Open Access publications make new research results freely available online to limitless numbers of readers, thus creating an invaluable tool of modern research. Unfortunately, there are still many difficulties for the researchers, especially from developing countries, to access the publications in the major academic journals. The development of Open Access in the publishing field helps to remove these difficulties and to bring the international research community together for the common benefit. As a result, Open Access will accelerate academic and applied research progress in the world.

We are pleased to highlight several papers from academicians that have been published in Minerals (ISSN: 2075-163X) over the last two years. We invite you to read these papers, listed below.

“Molecular Modeling of Ammonia Gas Adsorption onto the Kaolinite Surface with DFT Study”
Yaolin Shi (石耀霖)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/1/46

“Distribution Characteristics and Influencing Factors of Uranium Isotopes in Saline Lake Waters in the Northeast of Qaidam Basin”
R. Lawrence Edwards (艾思本)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/1/74

“Effective Treatment of Acid Mine Drainage with Microbial Fuel Cells: An Emphasis on Typical Energy Substrates”
Liyuan Chai (柴立元)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/5/443

“Thermodynamic Constraints on REE Mineral Paragenesis in the Bayan Obo REE-Nb-Fe Deposit, China”
Lin Ding (丁林)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/6/495

“Imaging Karatungk Cu-Ni Mine in Xinjiang, Western China with a Passive Seismic Array”
Wenjiao Xiao (肖文交)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/7/601

“Oxidation State of the Lithospheric Mantle Beneath Komsomolskaya–Magnitnaya Kimberlite Pipe, Upper Muna Field, Siberian Craton”
Yi-Gang Xu (徐义刚)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/9/740

“Analysis and Prediction of the Thiourea Gold Leaching Process Using Grey Relational Analysis and Artificial Neural Networks”
Tao Jiang (姜涛)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/9/811

“Iron Isotopes Constrain the Metal Sources of Skarn Deposits: A Case Study from the Han-Xing Fe Deposit, China”
Hongfu Zhang (张宏福)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/11/951

“Thermo-Structural Evolution of the Val Malenco (Italy) Peridotite: A Petrological, Geochemical and Microstructural Study”
Zhenmin Jin (金振民)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/11/962

“Identification and Origin of Jurassic (~182 Ma) Zircon Grains from Chromitite within the Peridotite of the Jijal Complex, Kohistan Arc in North Pakistan”
Lin Ding (丁林)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/10/12/1085

“Selective Flotation of Elemental Sulfur from Pressure Acid Leaching Residue of Zinc Sulfide”
Tao Jiang (姜涛)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/11/1/89

“Iron and Carbon Isotope Constraints on the Formation Pathway of Iron-Rich Carbonates within the Dagushan Iron Formation, North China Craton”
Mingguo Zhai (翟明国)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/11/1/94

“Metallogenic Characteristics and Formation Mechanism of Naomugeng Clay-Type Lithium Deposit in Central Inner Mongolia, China”
Wencai Yang (杨文采)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/11/3/238

“Elimination of Ferric Ion Effect on Separation between Kyanite and Quartz Using Citric Acid as Regulator”
Chuanyao Sun (孙传尧)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/11/6/599

“Assessing the Risk of Total and Available Potentially Toxic Elements in Agricultural Soil in Typical Mining Areas in Xiangjiang River Basin, Hunan Province”
Wenqing Liu (刘文清)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/11/9/953

“Detrital Zircon Provenance of the Cenozoic Sequence, Kotli, Northwestern Himalaya, Pakistan; Implications for India–Asia Collision”
Lin Ding (丁林)
Available online: https://www.mdpi.com/2075-163X/11/12/1399

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Yannicke Dauphin has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the Section “Biomineralization and Biominerals” in Minerals (ISSN 2075-163X), as of November 2021.

Dr. Yannicke Dauphin received her Ph.D. degree in palaeontology in 1973, and her “Habilitation Thesis” in 1983, both from University Paris XI (France). She was an assistant professor at the University Pierre & Marie Curie (now Sorbonne University), with teaching duties in palaeontology and computer sciences for students in geology. She was PI in several French and international programs dealing with the understanding of biominerals, and is now an honorary researcher at the Museum national d’histoire naturelle de Paris.

As fossils are widely used to reconstruct palaeoenvironments, she studied the microstructure of mollusc shells, and then extended her interest to corals, bones and teeth. Skeletons and shells are not pure minerals; they comprise an organic matrix and are easily modified in fossils. Palaeoenvironmental reconstructions are often based on the geochemical data of these biominerals, and the quality of the fossil record is important. It is necessary to improve our understanding of the origins of alterations in fossils. Comparisons of modern and fossil structures were carried out using optical microscopes, SEM and AFM, and their composition was analyzed using in situ methods (EPMA, FTIR, Raman, SIMS, ToF SIMS, Synchrotron X-ray fluorescence, XANES). The extracted organic components were analyzed using HPLC, electrophoreses, FTIR, Raman, and XANES. Experimental diagenesis was also performed to try to unravel the main involved factors, with implications for our knowledge of climate changes by providing primary data on the structural and compositional biases in fossil biominerals.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Yannicke Dauphin, who shared her vision for the journal with us, as well as her views of the research area and open access publishing:

An increasing number of editors are complaining about the “lack” of reviewers. Usually, competent people exist, but for diverse reasons, they do not want to review manuscripts. I believe I can help to find experienced reviewers in the field of biominerals.

Biominerals were not a hot topic in the first issues of the journal. Now it is a section. This evolution shows that the journal is not static. There is no specific journal fully dedicated to biominerals, so Minerals is important because it is not focused on a small topic. Modern and fossil biominerals are studied for a better understanding of biological evolution, the paleoenvironnment, etc.

The future is good, because of the large practical implications of the study of biomineralization: medicine, environment, aquaculture, industry, agriculture, etc. are of concern.

Open access is good and bad. Good because it allows everybody to read the articles for free. Bad because the fees are very expensive for small institutions, so these institutions are not able to publish in open journals. Big labs, and labs where some money must be used for publication are in a better position.

It is our great honor to congratulate the Editorial Board Members and Editors in MDPI's journals who have been distinguished as 2021 Highly Cited Researchers by Clarivate, according to Web of Science data. We herewith express our gratitude for the immense impact the named researchers continue to make on scientific progress and on our journals' development.

Clarivate's annual list of Highly Cited Researchers^TM identifies the most highly cited scientists for the past decade. Their impactful papers are among the top 1 per cent in the citation distribution of one or more of 22 fields analyzed in the "Essential Science Indicators", distinguishing them as hugely influential among their peers.

The full list of 2021 Highly Cited Researchers  can be accessed at the following webpage in the Web of Science^TM https://recognition.webofscience.com/awards/highly-cited/2021/.

--- Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) is a Clarivate product.