Earth Science

ROCKS & MINERALS

• Minerals are the
ingredients of
rocks.

Or

• Rocks are made

up of minerals.
Minerals
• naturally occurring, inorganic elements or
compounds with specific physical and chemical
properties.
• a naturally occurring (artificial or machine
generated), inorganic (not a by product of living
things) solid with an orderly crystalline structure
and a definite chemical composition.
• Minerals are the basic building blocks of
rocks.
Table showing examples of
Minerals and some of its
properties
Mineral Properties
 Used to identify minerals

1. Color
• Least useful property in identifying
minerals.
• Why?
All of these are varieties of quartz!
2. Streak
• The color of a minerals powder.
• “streak test”
 Color and Streak
• a. A lot of minerals can exhibit same or similar colors. Individual
minerals can also display a variety of colors resulting from impurities
and also from some geologic processes like weathering.
• b. Examples of coloring: quartz can be pink (rose quartz), purple
(amethyst), orange (citrine), white (colorless quartz) etc.
• c. Streak, on the other hand, is the mineral’s color in powdered
form. It is inherent in almost every mineral, and is a more diagnostic
property compared to color. Note that the color of a mineral can be
different from its streak.
• d. Examples of streak: pyrite (FeS2) exhibits gold color but has a
black or dark gray streak.
• e. The crystal’s form also defines the relative growth of the crystal in
three dimensions, which include the crystal’s length, width and
height.
3. Luster
• How the minerals surface reflects
light.
• Metallic vs. non- metallic.
 Luster
• it is the quality and intensity of reflected
light exhibited by the mineral
• a. Metallic – generally opaque and exhibit
a resplendent shine similar to a polished
metal
• b. Non-metallic – vitreous (glassy),
adamantine (brilliant/diamond-like),
resinous, silky, pearly, dull (earthy),
greasy, among others.
4. Hardness
• The ability of a mineral to resist being
scratched.
• “Scratch test”

• If mineral A can scratch mineral B, what

does that tell us about the relative
hardness of each mineral?
 Hardness

• it is a measure of the resistance of a mineral

(not specifically surface) to abrasion.
Moh’s Hardness Scale
Soft

Hard
5. Fracture/ Cleavage
Fracture Cleavage
• The tendency of a
• Mineral breaks Mineral to break
unevenly or evenly along its
irregularly weakest plane.
 Cleavage
• the property of some minerals to break along
specific planes of weakness to form smooth, flat
surfaces
• Cleavage is different from habit; the two are
distinct, unrelated properties. Although both are
dictated by crystal structure, crystal habit forms
as the mineral is growing, relying on how the
individual atoms in the crystal come together.
Cleavage, meanwhile, is the weak plane that
developed after the crystal is formed.
6. Crystal Form
• Some minerals tend to form crystals that
aid in the identification of the mineral.
 Crystal Form/Habit
• The external shape of a crystal or groups of
crystals is displayed / observed as these crystals
grow in open spaces. The form reflects the
supposedly internal structure (of atoms and ions)
of the crystal (mineral).
• It is the natural shape of the mineral before the
development of any cleavage or fracture.
• Examples include prismatic, tabular, bladed, platy,
Reni form and equant. A mineral that do not have a
crystal structure is described as amorphous.
7. Specific Gravity
• The ratio of the density of the mineral to the
density of water (1 g/cm3)
• This parameter indicates how many times more
the mineral weighs compared to an equal
• amount of water (SG 1).

• If a mineral has a specific gravity of 5 that means it

is 5 times as dense as water.
8. Others
• Acid test – Calcite
• Magnetic – Magnetite
• Taste - Halite
• Others – magnetism, odor, taste, tenacity,
reaction to acid, etc. For example,
magnetite is strongly magnetic; sulfur has
distinctive smell; halite is salty; calcite
fizzes with acid as with dolomite but in
powdered form; etc.
A minerals properties are due
to the internal arrangement of
its atoms.

Minerals, like many other things, can

also be categorized. The most stable
and least ambiguous basis for
classification of minerals is based on
their chemical compositions.
 ROCK FORMING MINERALS

• Rock-forming minerals make up large

masses of rocks, such as igneous,
sedimentary, or metamorphic rocks. Rock
forming minerals are essential for the
classification of rocks, whereas accessory
minerals can be ignored in this endeavor.
 ROCK FORMING MINERALS

• Almost 85% of the atoms in the earth’s

crust are oxygen and silicon. Therefore,
the most common and abundant rock-
forming minerals are silicates. Some
carbonates are also abundant.
Silicate Minerals

• Minerals that contain a combination of

silicon and oxygen.
Silicon-oxygen tetrahedron
The basic structural unit of silicate minerals
 Chemical Properties

• Chemical properties of minerals show the

presence and arrangement of atoms in
minerals. Using their chemical properties,
minerals are identified by how they react
to certain substances.