Minerals Flashcards
✓ Naturally occurring
✓ Inorganic
✓ Homogeneous Solid
✓ Definite chemical composition
✓ Solid-ordered internal structure
Minerals
naturally occurring, inorganic material that is amorphous, does not exhibit crystallinity
Mineraloid
Property of Minerals:
External expression of a mineral’s internal orderly arrangement of atoms
Mineral Habit/Form
Property of Minerals:
The shapes and aggregates that a certain mineral is likely to form
Mineral Habit/Form
Property of Minerals:
The ability of minerals to reflect light.
Luster
Property of Minerals:
Caused by the absorption or lack of absorption of various wavelengths of light
Color
Property of Minerals:
May also be due to impurities = not a good diagnostic property
Color
Property of Minerals:
The color of a mineral in powdered form
Streak
Metals usually have a (light/dark) streak
dark
Property of Minerals:
Resistance of minerals to abrasion or scratching
Hardness
Property of Minerals:
The tendency of a mineral to break in particular directions due to zones of weakness in the crystal structure
Cleavage
Property of Minerals:
Fractures or irregular breakages occur when bond strengths in a crystal structure are equal in all directions
Cleavage
Most Abundant Element in the Crust
Oxygen (47%)
Second Most Abundant Element in the Crust
Silicon (28%)
Most Abundant Mineral in the Crust
Plagioclase feldpars (39%)
useful metallic (and some nonmetallic) minerals that can be extracted and which contain useful substances
Ore
any of various minerals highly prized for beauty, durability, and rarity
Gemstones
A mineral named after its occurrence in Mankayan, Luzon Island, Philippines
Luzonite
It is a mineral officially named in 1788 after a Dutch colonel, Hendrik von Prehn, a naturalist and mineral collector, for discovering the stone in 1774, at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa
Prehnite
This mineral is named in 1900 by Alexander N. Winchell for the type locality of Pigeon Point, Minnesota, USA
Pigeonite
What mineral was named after the town of Cummington, Massachusetts, where it was discovered in 1824?
Cummingtonite
This mineral has a similar composition to Kryptonite named after the Jadar Basin, Serbia, where it was discovered during mineral explorations
Jadarite
