MINERALS

Minerals
• building blocks of rocks
• inorganic, naturally occurring crystalline substance
• has distinctive and recognizable physical characteristics that aid in its identification
Minerals
• A mineral is solid inorganic material of the Earth that has both a known chemical composition and a
crystalline structure that is unique to that mineral.
Rocks
• A rock is a solid aggregate of one or more minerals that have been cohesively brought together by a rock-
forming process.
Properties of Minerals
• Luster
• Hardness
• Cleavage
• Streak
• Transparency
• Specific gravity
• Crystal shape
• Color
• Fracture
Luster refers to the way light reflects from the surface of the mineral.
There are three types of luster,
• Metallic: looks like metals and are shiny
• Sub-metallic: dull coating and not shiny
• Nonmetallic: minerals that are described as glassy (vitreous), earthy (dull), pearly or greasy
• Pyrite has metallic luster.
• Quartz has nonmetallic luster
Hardness is measured by how easy it is to scratch. A measure of the resistance of a mineral to abrasion.
Geologists order the hardness by…
1. Scratched by a fingernail.
2. Scratched by a penny.
3. Scratched by a nail.
4. Scratched by a diamond.
These are not all of the tools geologists use, but it will work for our experiment.
• Gypsum is soft, it can be scratched by a fingernail.
• Calcite is soft, but a little harder because it cannot be scratched by a fingernail, but it can be scratched by
a penny.
• Fluorite is harder. It can be scratched by a nail, but not a penny or fingernail.
• Diamonds are the hardest mineral, so it scratches every mineral.
• Measured using the Mohs hardness scale, which compares the hardness of the mineral to 10 reference
minerals.
• Designed by German geologist/mineralogist Friedrich Mohs in 1812.

Cleavage is the tendency of mineral to break along smooth planes.

• Depends upon zones of weakness in the crystal structure.
• Not all minerals have cleavage.
• Some minerals split easily along a flat surface.
• Mica has cleavage in one direction. It breaks along one line.
• Feldspar has two lines of cleavage. It breaks along two lines.

Fracture exhibited if the mineral does not have a cleavage plane.

• The broken surface is irregular and not in a flat plane
• This is usually due to the equally strong chemical bonds between atoms of the minerals.
Streak refers to the color of the mineral in its powdered form.
• Red chalk on a chalk board makes red marks. White chalk makes white marks.
• Not all minerals work this way. When some minerals are scratched along a ceramic streak plate, it creates a
different color.
• When pyrite is run across a streak plate, it has a black or dark green streak.
• Hematite’s color is grey, but its streak is red.

Transparency is the property of a mineral that determines whether it is opaque, translucent or transparent.

Specific Gravity
• A measurement done by mineralogists to describe the density of the mineral.
• Represents the ratio of the mass of mineral to the mass of equal volume of water
• Most rock-forming minerals have a specific gravity that is between 2 and 3.

Crystal form
• Related to the internal geometric arrangement of the atoms that make up the crystal structure.
• The external shape of a crystal or groups of crystals is displayed/observed as these crystals grow in open
space.
• The natural shape of the mineral before the development of any cleavage or fracture.
• Prismatic, blocky/cubic, bladed, platy, etc.
• Example: halite (cubic)

Color
• Property of a mineral that is easiest to identify
• Unreliable property when it comes to identifying the mineral since slight impurities change the color

Quartz
• SiO2
• Hardness: 7
• Fracture: Conchoidal
• Color: Clear to White
• Used as a gemstone, mortar, scientific apparatus and in electronic industry
• Metamorphic, Igneous, Sedimentary

Mica
• K(Fe,Mg,Al)3AlSi3O10 (F,OH)2
• Cleavage: Perfect
• Thin Sheets, Flexible
• Color: Clear to Black
• Used in electrical, fireproofing, lubricant and wallpaper
• Igneous, Metamorphic. Accessory: Sedimentary

CLASSIFICATION OF ROCKS

Generally rocks are classified on the basis of the mode of formation and that some of these physical and
chemical properties are inherent on how the rocks are formed.

IGNEOUS ROCK
• Formed from the cooling and solidification of magma or lava
• Rate of cooling as one of the most important factors that control crystal size
• Solidification can occur along the surface of the earth or beneath the surface of the earth

Magma and Lava

Magma -Molten rock material beneath the surface of the earth.
Lava - Molten rock material extruded to the surface of the earth through a central vent (volcano) or as fissure
eruption.

HOW ARE IGNEOUS FORMED?

PROCESS 1
Formed underground
• Formed from melted rock(magma)
• Magma trapped in small pockets
• Magma cools down slowly
• plutonic or intrusive rocks
 • phaneritic textures (large interlocking crystals)
• Examples: granite, diorite, gabbro

PROCESS 2
Formed above ground
• Volcanoes erupt
• Magma flows above ground known as lava
• Fast rate of cooling/crystallization due to huge variance in the temperature between Earth’s surface and
underneath
• Volcanic or extrusive rocks
• Common textures: aphanitic, porphyritic, vesicular
• Examples: rhyolite, andesite, basalt

Porphyritic texture
Formed through two stages where in magma partly cooled below the surface of the earth providing time for the large
crystal to grow before it is extruded to the surface forming a fine grained matrix.

Aphanetic texture
Fine-grained texture, mineral not visible to the naked eye; relatively fast rates of cooling prevent the formation of
large crystals

Vesicular texture
Voids created by rapid cooling which causes bubbles to be trapped inside

SEDIMENTARY ROCKS
Formed by the sedimentation of earth’s surface

How sedimentary rocks formed?

• Weathering of rocks
• Erosion
• sediment transport
• deposition
• lithification (stone making) - compaction and cementation

Common sedimentary features

Fossil assemblages
• Remains and traces of plants and animals that are preserved in rocks

Stratification or layering
• Result of a change in grain size and composition
• Each layer represents a distinct period of deposition
Examples of sedimentary rocks: sandstone, limestone, shale, conglomerate, gypsum

Clastic Sedimentary Rocks

• Grains, matrix and cement are the components of clastic rocks
• Clastic rocks are commonly classified based on particle size.
• Clastic rocks with volcanic origin (e.g. pyroclastics) and may have undergone some stages in the
sedimentary processes could be classified as sedimentary rock (e.g. volcanoclastic rocks).

Grains: greater than sand-sized minerals and/or rock fragments.

Matrix: fine-grained (clay to silt sized) minerals.

Cement: minerals precipitated from solution that binds the grains and matrix together

Non-clastic Sedimentary Rocks

•
•

• Evaporation and precipitation from solution or lithification of organic matter

• Classified as evaporites (halite, gypsum and dolostone), precipitates (limestone) and bioclastics (coal,
coquina)

Evaporites: rocks formed from the evaporation of water leaving the dissolved minerals to crystallize.
Precipitates: rocks formed when minerals from a mineral supersaturated waters start to crystallize at the bottom of
the solution
Bioclastics : rocks formed from compacted organic matter
METAMORPHIC ROCKS
• Formed when pre-existing rocks are exposed to higher temperatures and pressures but remain solid.
Metamorphism- change effected by heat/pressure

How are metamorphic rocks formed?

• Once “igneous” or “sedimentary”
• Rock under large amount of pressure
• Heat builds up
• This is what morphs(changes) them
• Contact and regional metamorphism
Contact Metamorphism
• Heat and reactive fluids as main factors: occurs when a pre-existing rocks gets in contact with magma.
• Creates non-foliated metamorphic rocks
• Example: hornfels
Non-foliated metamorphic rocks
• Produced where there is little deformation and when the parent rock has equi-dimensional crystals.

Regional Metamorphism
• Pressure as main factor: occurs in areas that have undergone considerable amount of mechanical deformation
and chemical crystallization during orogenic event which are commonly associated with mountain belts.
• Occurs in a regional/large scale
• Creates foliated metamorphic rocks
• Examples: schist, gneiss

Foliated – exhibit parallel alignment of the minerals

Examples of metamorphic rocks: slate, hornfels, schist, marble, gneiss
Rock Cycle

SUMMARY
• Rock-forming minerals are the minerals that are commonly found in all types of rocks.
• Rock cycle is the process that allows one to see how rocks change and accumulate other Earth materials.
• Igneous rocks are rocks form from the crystallization of either magma or lava.
• External processes such as weathering, erosion and deposition helps in shaping Earth’s surface as well as
contribute in the formation of sedimentary rocks.
• Sedimentary rocks are rocks formed from weathered materials that are transported, compacted and cemented.
Its most feature is its strata or layers.
• Metamorphic rocks are formed from either sedimentary rocks or igneous rocks that are exposed to high
pressure and temperature and interacted with chemically active fluids to trigger metamorphism.