A study of garnet and biotite from Archean stratified metamorphic rocks in northern Liaoning shows that these two minerals exhibit oscillatory zoning in chemical composition, especially in the ratio of Mg to Mg + Fe. An investigation into their growth process reveals that such zoning is a nonequilibrium self-organization or dissipative structure formed as a result of a nonideal state of these minetals during Archean metamorphism. The oscillatory variation in chemical composition of minerals is an intrinsic characteristic of the petrochemical system under noneguilibrium conditions instead of resulting from periodic changes in such external conditions as temperature and pressure. In addition, the significance of oscillatory zoning in minerals in the study of metamorphism is discussed in detail in this paper.