In later years Karsten held senior government positions in mining and mineralogy in the Kingdom of Prussia at Berlin.

[1] A teacher at the Freiberg Mining Academy in those years was Abraham Gottlob Werner, who had recently developed an improved system for classifying minerals and rocks.

This was published as a 600-page book in German in 1789 entitled "Leske's mineral collection systematically arranged and described".

Werner's system was influential in mineralogy throughout Europe in late 18th and early 19th century, and Karsten was one of its leading proponents.

Karsten in the 1790s and 1800s continued working on improving the classification of minerals, and published a number of reports on the subject.