MINERAL STRENGTH

Minerals can be identified by their physical characteristics. The physical properties of minerals are
related to their chemical composition and bonding. Some characteristics, such as a mineral’s hardness,
are more useful for mineral identification, tenacity, cleavage and fracture. Color is readily observable
and certainly obvious, but it is usually less reliable than other physical properties.

1. Tenacity (from the Latin tenacitus, to hold fast) refers to how a mineral will break, bend, cut, or
crush it. This property is the reason many ores are mined to manufacture important products,
such as copper wires and gold and silver jewelry. Some minerals behave differently under
different stresses: they may break when hit with a hammer, but can be cut with a knife.

Brittle: Mineral that breaks into fragments when hammered or crushed, are brittle. Calcite and
quartz can be broken into small pieces. The combination of abundance and brittleness of quartz
accounts for its dominance in beach sand.
Malleable (from the Latin malleus, a hammer or mallet): Mineral that, when hammered or
rolled, do not break, but simply change shape, are said to be malleable. Malleable minerals can
be pounded or rolled into thin sheets. Examples of malleability include native metals as copper,
gold, silver, and lead.
Ductile (from the Latin ductilus, drawing out): Copper and other metals can be drawn into wires.
Many minerals that are malleable are also ductile. But some, like lead, which can be hammered
cannot be pulled in wires.
Sectile (from the Latin sectilus, a cut): Minerals that can be cut into thin pieces with a knife are
sectile. Many soft minerals (H < 3) can be easily cut. Examples include graphite and gypsum.
Elastic: Elastic minerals can bend without breaking, and will return to the original shape when
the force is released. Thin sheets of mica are the classic example of this. But if bent too far, the
sheet can snap.
Flexible: Flexible minerals, like an elastic ones, bent without breaking, but remain permanently
bent when the force is released. Thin plates of gypsum provide examples of flexibility.

2. Hardness is determined by scratching the mineral with a mineral or substance of known

hardness. Hardness is a relative scale, thus to determine a mineral's hardness, you must
determine that a substance with a hardness greater than the mineral does indeed scratch the
unknown mineral, and that the unknown mineral scratches a known mineral of lesser hardness.

Hardness is determined on the basis of Moh's relative scale of hardness exhibited by some
common minerals. These minerals are listed below, along with the hardness of some common
objects.
3. Cleavage is the tendency of a mineral to break along flat surfaces. The way in which a mineral
breaks depends on how its atoms are bonded, or joined together. In a mineral that displays
cleavage, the bonds of the crystal structure are weaker in the directions in which the mineral
breaks.

4. Fracture is the tendency of a mineral to break into irregular pieces. Some minerals such as
quartz break into pieces with curved surfaces, as shown below. Other minerals may break
differently—perhaps into splinters or into rough or jagged pieces. In a mineral that displays
 fracture, the bonds that join the atoms are fairly equal in strength in all directions. The mineral
does not break along flat surfaces because there are no particular directions of weakness in its
crystal structure.

5. Density and Special Gravity

The specific gravity of a mineral represents its weight compared to the weight of an equal
volume of pure water. Thus, a mineral with a specific gravity of 5 is five times as heavy as water.
This characteristic property of minerals depends on the atomic weights of the constituent
elements and their structural arrangement.
Density describes how much matter is in a certain amount of space: density = mass/volume.
Mass is a measure of the amount of matter in an object. The amount of space an object takes up
is described by its volume. The density of an object depends on its mass and its volume.

Other Properties of Mineral

As mentioned previously, certain minerals can be distinguished by other characteristics in
addition to the ones already described. Additional to this, several minerals have unique optical
characteristics.
Calcite, for example, shows a doubling of images viewed through it. The two rays are polarized
so that the light in each vibrates in a direction at right angles to the other. The same polarization
happens in the mineral mica, but in mica one of the rays is completely absorbed in one
direction. This effect is called double refraction.

Mineral Groups
Minerals are the fundamental components of rocks. They are naturally occurring inorganic substances
with a specific chemical composition and an orderly repeating atomic structure that defines a crystal
structure. It comes in a variety of shapes and sizes. They may, however, be classified into two major
categories: silicate minerals and non-silicate minerals, which are both found in the earth's crust.

Silicate minerals are the most abundant components of rocks on the Earth's surface, making up over 90%
by mass of the Earth's crust. The fundamental chemical building block of silicate minerals is the chemical
compound silicon tetroxide, SiO4. Virtually all igneous rocks are made from silicate minerals; most
metamorphic and many sedimentary rocks are made from silicates as well. They can be subdivided into
smaller groups on the basis of their structure.

Non-silicates are minerals that do not include the silicon-oxygen unit’s characteristic of silicates. They may
contain oxygen, but not in combination with silicon. Their structure tends to be more variable and less
complex than that of the silicates, although they too can be subdivided into different classes based on
their composition. The common non-silicate minerals, which constitute less than 10% of the Earth's crust,
include carbonates, oxides, sulphides, phosphates and salts. A few elements may occur in pure form.
These include gold, silver, copper, bismuth, arsenic, lead, tellurium and carbon.

Important Non-Silicate Minerals:

Other mineral groups can be considered scarce when compared to the silicates. Some of them are
however important economically. The table below lists examples of oxides, sulphides, sulphates, halides,
native elements and carbonates of economic value.

Gemstones are minerals, rocks, or organic matters that have been chosen for their beauty, durability, and
rarity and then cut or faceted and polished to make jewelry or other human adornments. Even though
most gemstones are hard, some are too soft or fragile to be used in jewelry, so they are often exhibited in
museums and sought by collectors.
The Earth's crust, which ranges in thickness from 3 to 25 miles, the mantle, and the core form our world.
While just a small number of gemstones occur in the mantle, nearly all minerals form on the Earth's crust.
When the pie crust is made up of three different kinds of rock — igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary
— it is called an igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary crust. A variety of gemstones may be found in
the earth's crust.

All of the Earth’s organisms, air, water, and soil, as well as materials such as oil, coal, and ore that are
removed from the ground. Separated into two broad categories:
 Renewable resources  Nonrenewable resources

Renewable resources are natural resources that can be replenished in a short period of time. A renewable
natural resource is one that can be renewed, or replenished in a reasonable amount of time (in years or a
human-life span), once it has been used. Renewable energy is generated from natural sources (sun, wind,
rain, tides, and vegetation) and can be generated again and again when needed. It is generally replenished
naturally.

A non-renewable natural resource is one that has specific conditions that made them (like fossilized plant
matter converting into coal), and can take many generations to reproduce. Sometimes the conditions are
not likely to occur again so they are limited in supply and once used cannot be re-generated within a short
span of time. Non-renewable sources exist in the form of natural gas, oil, and coal.
What is an ore deposit?

“An ore is rock that may be, is hoped to be, will be, is or has been mined; and from which something of
value may be (or has been) extracted”. (Taylor, 1989, Ore reserves – a general overview. Mining industry
international, vol. 990, pp. 5–12.). An ore deposit consists of one or more ore bodies. An ore body is a
mass of rock that contain ore and from which a commodity of value will be extracted. Not all ore within
an ore body will be extracted. Ore bodies are divided into reserves and resources.