Abstract The writing and production of this volume recognize its potential role as a textbook for courses in “Environmental Mineralogy”, a field that calls on both core mineralogical skills and interdisciplinary understanding across chemical, biological and geological fields. It is an area ideally suited the development of advanced teaching that redefines the boundaries of mineralogy, one of the oldest of the sciences. In that context, this volume fulfils a need defined in the Socrates/Erasmus Programme of the European Union. Sponsorship from the EU in the development of a coordinated European curriculum in mineralogy has been important in bringing this project to fruition, and thus in creating materials for European courses in environmental mineralogy, specifically as an Intensive Programme (lP) which falls at the border between Erasmus CDI and CDA levels.