MINERALS

- BUILDING BLOCKS OR ROCKS

2000 various of minerals

Minerals have quite few uses in our life

Ex. diamond
Fluorite - toothpaste
Talc - baby powder

What makes a mineral a mineral

5 criteria (snifs)
-solid
-naturally occurring (not man-made)
-inorganic (not living or made from living things)
-fixed chemical formula
-specific atomic arrangement

Mineral Color - not a reliable characteristic for identification

Testing hardness - (scratch the glass w/ mineral); scratch - hard
greater 5.5 , not - less than 5.5
Testing luster - how light reflects off of a surface of a mineral;
metallic or non metallic
Testing breakage - hardest property to identify
Fracture - mineral breaks randomly
Cleavage - minerals break predictably
Testing streak - color of a mineral as a powder (use ceramic tile
b&w; streak tiles)
Other characteristics:
Based on taste
Magnetism
Calcite - double refraction

MINERALS AND ROCKS

A mineral is an inorganic, naturally occurring solid that has
definite chemical composition and atomic structure.

Mineral Characteristics
Color
Hardness
Luster
Streak
Cleavage/Fracture
Other (taste, magnetic)

Galena - metallic, very soft 2.5 hardness, silver grey black

streak , compose of lead and sulfur
Olivine - harder mineral fracture, non metallic jewelry

Minerals - building block of rocks

Igneous, sedimnetary, metamorphic

Igneous - cooling solidification of magma or lava

Extrusive (volcanic) - lava cool quickly (small crystal)
Ex. basalt, rhyolite, obsidian
Crystalline or vesicular
The longer the cooling time, the larger the crystal size
Intrusive (plutonic) - lava cool slowly (have large crystals)
Ex. granite, pegmatite

LIGHTER --------------- COLOR ------------- DARKER

LOWER ---------------- DENSITY ------------ HIGHER
FELSIC --------------- COMPOSITION -------MAFIC
(rich in Si, Al) (Iron, Mg)

Sedimentary - compaction and cementation of sediments

Clastic (fragmental)
Crystalline sedimentary rocks - halite dissolved in water
 - formed from evaporation or precipitation of minerals in
water
Limestone - bioclastic (formed from the compaction)

METAMORPHIC
- rocks form from exposure to intense heat/or pressure
Foliated ex. gneiss, slate
Minerals alignment - as a result of intense pressure
Banding - under even greater pressure minerals separate
into dark and light stripes called bands
Non-foliated