About the Editors

Don Baker is a professor of geochemistry in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at McGill University (Montreal, Canada). He primarily studies the equilibrium and kinetic processes responsible for the origin and evolution of igneous rocks on Earth and other terrestrial planets. He received his A.B. in Geophysical Sciences from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. He is a recipient of the Career Achievement Award of the Volcanology and Igneous Petrology Section of the Geological Association of Canada and of the Peacock Award of the Mineralogical Association of Canada. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed papers in geology, physics, and materials science, but not a single one containing a mineral structure.

Hongwu Xu is a Senior Scientist of the Earth and Environmental Sciences Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory (New Mexico, U.S.A.). His research involves structural characterization and thermodynamic measurements of natural minerals and synthetic materials, enabling determination of their structure-stability relationships at relevant pressure/temperature conditions. The systems he has studied include oxides, hydroxides, silicates, titanates, niobates, sulfates, and gas hydrates, with a wide range of Earth, energy, and environmental applications. He has a Ph.D. and a M.A. in Geosciences from Princeton University, U.S.A, a M.S. in Mineralogy and Crystallography, and a B.S. in Mineralogy, Petrology, and Geochemistry from Nanjing University, China. He is a Fellow of the Mineralogical Society of America and has published ~150 papers in peer-reviewed journals in geology, chemistry, and materials science.

The Editors make final decisions on all papers and will handle Letter papers personally.

Don Baker

Hongwu Xu