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Earth's sub-
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Trophosphere surface
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water
Inner Outer
Thermosphere Scavenger
Core Core
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Exospher
e
What is a Mineral?
A mineral:
is a naturally occurring inorganic crystalline solid
Quartz Amethyst
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How Do Minerals Grow?
New minerals are forming everyday on the Earth’s surface, in the Earth’s crust, and
deep within the Earth’s interior.
Minerals form from molten rock and volcanic magma within the Earth’s interior and
crust. In these environments, changes in temperature and pressure and chemical
composition influence the type of minerals which form, the size of their individual
crystals, and their growth rate.
Minerals grow from saturated solutions in rock cavities. Differences in temperature,
chemical composition, and the saturation content of the solution influence the type
of minerals which form, the size of their individual crystals, and their growth rate.
The arrangement of atoms during crystal formation determines what the mineral will
be and what crystal shape it will have.
The crystal form is one of several characteristics that Geologists use to identify
different minerals.
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Standard 3-3.1
Standard 3-3.2
Mineral Properties
Minerals have distinctive that
geologists use to identify and describe them.
There are 7 major physical properties of minerals:
A variety of different minerals.
1. Color
2. Streak
3. Hardness
4. Cleavage
5. Crystalline Structure
6. Transparency or
Diaphaneity
7. Magnetism
8. Tenacity
9. Luster
10. Odor
11. Specific Gravity Copyright©Dr. Richard Busch 8
1. Color
- The usual and most generic way to identify minerals
easily. It is a result of how the minerals absorb or reflect
light. However, this property may not be used in
identifying minerals that are translucent to transparent
minerals, because there may be trace amounts of other
minerals in them. Because of similarities and varieties of
minerals, color is the least reliable property to identify
minerals.
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Standard 3-3.1
Standard 3-3.2
Color
Mineral color is determined by how the crystals absorb and reflect light. Although color is
easy to recognize, it is often misleading.
Minerals, such as quartz, fluorite, halite, and calcite occur in a wide variety of colors, and
other minerals, such as olivine, malachite, and amphibole have fairly distinctive colors.
Variations in a mineral’s color may be the result of impurities in the atomic structure of the
crystal or the presence of a particular chemical when the crystal formed.
Because some minerals can occur in several colors, color is generally not a good characteristic
for describing and identifying minerals.
copyright@Stonetrust, Inc
copyright@Stonetrust, Inc
Streak
Streak refers to the color of a mineral’s powdered form left behind after it is
scraped or rubbed across a porcelain streak plate.
A mineral may appear one color and then produce a streak with a different
color.
A mineral’s streak color is a more reliable identification characteristic than
the minerals perceived surface color.
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Photo: SCGS
3. Hardness – this refers to the measure of a
mineral’s resistance to scratching.
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Standard 3-3.1
Standard 3-3.2
Hardness
Standard 3-3.14
Standard 3-3.17
Talc
Talc is a soft mineral that you can scratch with your fingernail, and has a hardne
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Copyright©Dr. Richard Busch
Standard 3-3.1
Standard 3-3.2
Softest Talc
....your fingernail has a
Gypsum 3-Calcite 4-Fluorite 5-Apatite
------------------------------------
hardness of 2.5
Orthoclase ....a penny has a hardness of about 3.5
Quartz ....glass and a steel nail have nearly equa
....a streak plate has a hardness of 6.5
Topaz
Corundum 10-Diamond
Hardest
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4. Cleavage and Fracture
- are used to describe how minerals break into
smaller pieces.
Cleavage is the tendency to break along planes of
weakness and it produces flat, shiny surfaces. It is a
break along a plane of weakness in the crystal lattice.
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Standard 3-3.1
Standard 3-3.2
Cleavage, cont.
One direction of cleavage (one
plane) Feldspar: Two Cleavage Planes
Mineral Example: Micas (muscovite)
Two directions of cleavage (two planes) plane one:
Mineral Example: Feldspar
plane two:
Three directions of cleavage (three planes)
Cubic : Mineral Example: Galena
Rhombohedral: Mineral Example: Calcite
Courtesy United States Geological Survey
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Copyright©Dr.Richard Busch
Plane three: Copyright©Stonetrust, Inc
Table
of
Conte
nts
Standard 3-3.1
Standard 3-3.2
Fracture
Fracture refers to the non-planar breakage of minerals.
Minerals that break along fractures (as oppose to cleavage planes) do
not exhibit predictable weakness along specified bonds.
Fractures may be described as splintery, uneven, or conchoidal.
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copyright©Dr. Richard Busch
5. Crystalline Structure or the Crystal
Lattice determines how the crystal of a
mineral is arranged. A crystal solid is said
to form a regular repeating 3-
dimensional crystal lattice, while an
amorphous solid forms an aggregate that
has no order or arrangement.
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6. Transparency or Diaphaneity
- indicates the extent how much light
can pass through the mineral. It can be said
that the transparency is dependent on the
thickness of the mineral.
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7. Magnetism
- indicates the ability of a mineral
to attract or repel another
mineral. (e,g. Magnetite).
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8. Tenacity
- is the level or resistance
of minerals to stress such
as crushing, bending,
breaking, or tearing.
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9. Luster
- refers to the reaction of the mineral
when a light strikes. It determines how
brilliant or dull the mineral is. The mineral
can have a metallic, a pearly, glassy, or dull
luster.
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Standard 3-3.1
Standard 3-3.2
Luster
Luster refers to how light is reflected from the surface of a mineral.
There are two main types of luster: metallic and non-metallic:
Minerals with a metallic luster are described as shiny, silvery, or having a metal-like
reflectance.
Non-metallic minerals may be described as resinous, translucent, pearly,
waxy, greasy, silky, vitreous/glassy, dull, or earthy
Luster may be subjective, and thus is not always a reliable identifier
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10. Odor
- is a distinct smell by a mineral that is
usually released through a chemical
reaction when subject to different
conditions such as water, heat, air or even
friction. Sulfur for example may smell like
a lit-match and sometimes smell like
rotten eggs when it is heated.
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11. Specific Gravity
- is a measure of the density of a
mineral. It is a ratio of how heavy the
mineral is by its weight to water. Specific
gravity is used specifically when two
minerals have the same size or same color.
The specific gravity of each mineral can
distinguish them apart from other
minerals.
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Directions: Look for the terms regarding
Physical Properties of minerals in the
word search below and define them
using your own words in a separate
sheet of paper. Look for the terms
regarding Physical Properties of
minerals in the word search below and
define them using your own words in a
separate sheet of paper.
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Minerals are classified by their chemical composition and internal c
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1. Silicate class
– The largest and the most abundant
group containing silicon and oxygen
with some aluminum, magnesium, iron,
and calcium. Some minerals are
feldspar, quartz, pyroxene, mica, garnet,
olivine, and amphibole.
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Silicon-oxygen tetrahedron (SiO4-4)
Silicon atom
Copyright©Stonetrust, Inc. 32
2. Carbonate class
– is mostly found deposited in marine
environments Minerals belonging to this
group are from remains of shells of dead
plankton or marine life. Other places in which
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Copyright©Stonetrust, Inc. Copyright©Stonetrust, Inc.
3. Sulphate Class – the minerals that form
in areas with high evaporation rates and
where salty waters slowly evaporate.
During the process of evaporation, once
the salty water evaporates, what is left are
minerals such as sulphates and halides.
Some of the most common sulphate
minerals are anhydrite, Celestine, barite,
and gypsum.
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Barite Gypsum
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Image Courtesy of the USGS Image Courtesy of the USGS
4. Halide class
- contains natural salts and includes
fluorite, halite, sylvite and sal-ammoniac
components. These minerals usually form
in landlocked bodies of water such as the
Dead Sea or the Great Salt Lake. Minerals
in this class usually have low hardness,
may be transparent, have good cleavage,
have low specific gravities and usually
poor conductors of electricity (when not
dissolved in water). 37
Halides consist of halogen elements, chlorine (Cl), bromine (Br), fluorine (F), an
Some examples include Halite (NaCl) and Flourite (CaF2).
Halite Fluorite
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6. Sulphide Class
- contains economically
significant metals such as copper,
lead, and silver. These minerals
are mined for electrical wiring,
industrial materials, and other
construction materials.
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7. Phosphate class
- contains minerals that have
phosphorus in them.
The phosphates are considered as
an important biological mineral
that is found in both teeth and
bones of many animals.
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8. Native element class
– Contains metals and intermetallic
elements (gold, silver and copper),
semimetals, non-metals (e.g.,
antimony, bismuth, graphite, Sulphur)
or natural alloys and some
components of few rare meteorites.
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Gold Silver
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Image Courtesy of the USGS Image Courtesy of the USGS
Directions:
Solve the crossword
puzzle with the
knowledge based on the
Chemical Properties of
Minerals.
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Resources and References
Blackburn, W.H. and Dennen, W.H., 1988, Principles of Mineralogy: Iowa, WCB
Klein, C. and Hurlbut, C.S.Jr., 1985, Manual of Mineralogy (20th Ed.): John Wile
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