Good evening everyone, I’m the next reporter and I will be discussing about the Physical

properties of some dark-colored silicate minerals. The dark silicates are also called
ferromagnesian because of the presence of iron and magnesium in them. They range from
vitreous to dull in luster. The Olivine, Pyroxene, Hornblende, Biotite, and garnet are the
examples.

[1] So let’s discuss the Physical properties of Olivine first. Olivine is a mineral formed at high
temperature which crystallizes early from a basic magma to form well shaped, rather squat
prisms in most of the rocks in which it is present. Magma is hot liquid rock which, when
consolidated, is known as igneous rock. The olivine is a green or dark green ferromagnesian
with a 3.5 plus specific gravity, 6 and a half Hardness, and no cleavage. Before we move on to
the second example, I wanna explain first what Specific gravity, hardness, and cleavage of
minerals are. Specific gravity measures the ratio of the weight of a mineral to the weight of an
equal volume of water, so Specific gravity is related to the density of a mineral. The hardness,
is a measure of its relative resistance to scratching, measured by scratching the mineral against
another substance of known hardness on the Moh’s Hardness Scale. And the cleavage refers to
the way some minerals break along certain lines of weakness in their structure.

[2] The second example would be pyroxene. The pyroxenes (commonly abbreviated to Px) are a
group of important rock-forming inosilicate minerals found in
many igneous and metamorphic rocks, but the most important one in igneous rocks is the mineral
augite. Augite is color black or brown, with specific gravity of 3.3, hardness of 5 and a half, and
2 cleavage.