ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the current state of the art in experimental and theoretical determinations of surface and interface geometry. It focuses on the subset of mineral systems for which the most detailed understanding of surface atomic structures exists. The chapter demonstrates that the atomic structure of mineral surfaces can be qualitatively understood, and predicted, using a set of five simple principles. They are stable surfaces are autocompensated, rehybridize the dangling bond charge density, form an insulating surface, conserve near-neighbor bond lengths, and kinetics are important. Scanning probe microscopies, the scanning tunneling microscope and the atomic force microscope, are ideal tools for studying mineral surfaces over the length scales required to understand these phenomena, not only in vacuum, but also in air and aqueous environments. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the major issues associated with the atomic structure of mineral surfaces and speculations on promising areas for future research.
