ROCKS, MINERALS & Igneous Rock

QUICK STUDY GUIDE

What is a Mineral: Naturally-formed, inorganic solid substance with a definite
formula and a crystal structure.
What do ALL minerals have in common?
Are formed by natural processes.
Are not alive and never were alive.
Are solids.
Are elements or compounds with a definite chemical formula.
Are made up of particles that are arranged in a pattern that is repeated over
and over (called a CRYSTAL STRUCTURE).
How do minerals form?
When water evaporates in a hot, shallow water leaving behind the salt it
contained.
When molten rock cools.
Deep inside Earth under high heat and pressure.

Basaltic igneous rocks are dark-colored and dense.

a. Contain iron and magnesium but very little silica.
b. Basaltic lava flows freely from a volcano.
Igneous rocks form from cooled and solidified magma or lava.
When magma cools slowly inside Earth, we get intrusive
(plutonic) igneous rocks with large crystals.
When lava cools quickly at or near Earths surface, we get extrusive (volcanic)
igneous rocks with small or no crystals. These may be vesicular, meaning there are
trapped gas bubbles.

Use what you have learned about rocks to describe the color and
texture of the rock below. What type of rock is this? How did it form?

Igneous rock, magma cooled and solidified slowly

deep underground (Intrusive).

Crystal size depends on how fast or slow crystals form:

Fast Cooling = small Crystals

Slow Cooling = large crystals

Rock: a mixture of one or more minerals, rock fragments, organic matter, or
volcanic glass. A rock is naturally formed solid that is usually made up of one or
more types of minerals.
Rocks are made of two or more different minerals that have been:

cemented together

squeezed and heated together

melted and cooled together.

Types of Rocks

Igneous Rocks: made from magma or lava as it cools and hardens.

Most igneous rocks are produced deep underground by the cooling and
hardening of magma
Igneous rocks are classified in two ways.

Intrusive: under the Earths surface. Formed deep within the earth.
Extrusive: at or near the Earths surface. Formed from lava; volcanic.
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