  The second "Mineral Detection of Neutrinos and Dark Matter" (MDvDM'24)
meeting was held January 8-11, 2024 in Arlington, VA, USA, hosted by Virginia
Tech's Center for Neutrino Physics. This document collects contributions from
this workshop, providing an overview of activities in the field. MDvDM'24 was
the second topical workshop dedicated to the emerging field of mineral
detection of neutrinos and dark matter, following a meeting hosted by IFPU in
Trieste, Italy in October 2022. Mineral detectors have been proposed for a wide
variety of applications, including searching for dark matter, measuring various
fluxes of astrophysical neutrinos over gigayear timescales, monitoring nuclear
reactors, and nuclear disarmament protocols; both as paleo-detectors using
natural minerals that could have recorded the traces of nuclear recoils for
timescales as long as a billion years and as detectors recording nuclear recoil
events on laboratory timescales using natural or artificial minerals.
Contributions to this proceedings discuss the vast physics potential, the
progress in experimental studies, and the numerous challenges lying ahead on
the path towards mineral detection. These include a better understanding of the
formation and annealing of recoil defects in crystals; identifying the best
classes of minerals and, for paleo-detectors, understanding their geology;
modeling and control of the relevant backgrounds; developing, combining, and
scaling up imaging and data analysis techniques; and many others. During the
last years, MDvDM has grown rapidly and gained attention. Small-scale
experimental efforts focused on establishing various microscopic readout
techniques are underway at institutions in North America, Europe and Asia. We
are looking ahead to an exciting future full of challenges to overcome,
surprises to be encountered, and discoveries lying ahead of us.
