The 2550 rare minerals that exist on Earth constitute a unique fingerprint that differentiates this planet from all others in the cosmos.
The conclusion comes from scientists who, for the first time, have catalogued minerals in all their varieties.
Research scientists Robert Hazen and Jesse Ausubel on Friday published in American Mineralogist magazine the study On the Nature and Significance of Rarity in Mineralogy.
This catalogues the 2550 most singular minerals on the planet - minerals like fingerita, discovered in El Salvador, and amosite.
The scientists say that these rarities differentiate Earth from all other planets.
"Our conclusion is that every planet able to support life has a unique fingerprint of minerals, especially of rare minerals. It's also very probable that planets without life, like Mercury and even Mars, have much simpler minerals," Dr Hazen, a research scientist at the Carnegie Institution of Washington's Geophysical Laboratory, told EFE.
Hazen, who is also executive director of the Deep Carbon Observatory, which studies carbon on Earth, added that this is the reason why explorations carried out up to now on the moon and even on Mars by means of rovers "are not discovering anything very surprising in mineralogy".
Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment and senior research associate at The Rockefeller University in New York City, said the mineralogical riches on Earth are linked to its richness of life and that a world ecologically poorer translates into the presence of fewer minerals.
"It's an incredibly fascinating concept that has come to light over the past decade, the idea that minerals and life are absolutely linked. Life depends on minerals. Life could not have begun without some of the chemical properties that minerals provided at Earth's beginning," Hazen said.
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