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The most important factor controlling the timing of Phanerozoic mineralogical evolution in the Bivalvia appears to be thermal potentiation of calcite deposition in colder marine and estuarine environments. Cold temperature has promoted mineralogical evolution in the Bivalvia by kinetically facilitating (potentiating) initially weak biological controls for calcite, thereby exposing their genetic basis to natural selection. Calcite has evolved in bivalve shells for a variety of selective advantages, including resistance to dissolution; resistance to chemical boring by algae and gastropods; reduced shell density in swimming and soft-bottom reclining species; enhanced flexibility in simple prismatic shell layers; and fracture localization and economy of secretion in association with certain foliated structures.Endogenous calcite in bivalve shells varies from biologically induced to weakly and strongly biologically controlled. Biologically controlled calcite generally first appears in bivalve shells as an impersistent component of the outer shell layer, only later, in some groups, expanding to include the entire outer and then part or all of the middle and inner shell layers. The initial stages of mineralogical evolution are shown by certain modern Mytilidae, Veneridae and Petricolidae. In the latter two families, the calcite occurs as conellae in the outer part of the outer shell layer. Calcitic conellae in the inner shell layer of Pliocene Mercenaria are not barnacle plates, as previously indicated, but endogenous calcite comparable in origin to other venerid conellae. Their occurrence in Mercenaria may reflect thermal potentiation of weak biological controls for calcite, as well as local detachment of the secretory mantle epithelium near the pallial and adductor musculature.

Like most classifications of molluscan shell microstructure published during the past 25 years (e.g., MacClintock, 1967; Kobayashi, 1964, 1971; Taylor, Kennedy and Hall, 1969, 1973; Grégoire, 1972a), the present one is based largely on Bøggild's (1930) monographic work, redefined from a modern perspective of combined light and scanning electron microscopy. However, this is the first attempt to integrate shell microstructure terminology for mollusks with that employed by students of bryozoan and brachiopod shell microstructure (e.g., Williams, 1968a,b, 1970, 1973; Williams and Wright, 1970; Armstrong 1968, 1969; Sandberg, 1971, 1977; Brunton, 1972; MacKinnon, 1974, 1977; MacKinnon and Williams, 1974; Iwata, 1981, 1982). An integration of nomenclatorial schemes is desirable for purposes of interphylum comparison, and is presently needed because there is considerable overlap and inconsistency in the application of microstructural terminology even within single molluscan classes. The present synthesis of shell microstructure nomenclature is possible primarily because of the extensive data base of invertebrate shell mineralogy, microstructure and especially ultrastructure published in more than 300 references in the past 15 years. To these data, the authors have contributed original information of shell mineralogy and microstructure for scores of Recent and fossil mollusks, brachiopods and bryozoans, with a clear emphasis on bivalved mollusks. Many inadequately described microstructure terms have been reanalyzed during the course of this study, either by examining species cited in the literature, or by using closely related species. Perhaps because they are better studied, but probably for other reasons as well, the diversity of molluscan shell microstructures is considerably greater than that of brachiopods and bryozoans combined (Carter, 1979). Consequently, most of the present nomenclature is based on mollusks, and only three of the major microstructural arrangements described in this guide (crossed bladed, semi-nacreous and semi-foliated) were known first in brachiopods or bryozoans and later recognized in molluscs.

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