Minerals: Building Blocks of Rocks

MINERALS
• A mineral can be defined as a natural inorganic substance having a
particular chemical composition or range of composition, and a
regular atomic structure to which its crystalline form is related.

• Some minerals are very strong and produce strong rocks; while some
minerals are softer and produce weak rocks.

• More than 2000 minerals are present on earth’s crust.

Definition
• Geologists define mineral as any naturally occurring inorganic solid
that possesses an orderly crystalline structure and can be represented
by a chemical formula.
Characteristics of Minerals
Earth materials that are classified as minerals exhibit the following
characteristics:
1. Naturally occurring. Minerals form by natural, geologic processes.
Synthetic materials, meaning those produced in a laboratory or by
human intervention, are not considered minerals.
2. Solid substance. Only solid crystalline substances are considered
minerals. Ice (frozen water) fits this criterion and is considered a
mineral, whereas liquid water and water vapor do not.
Characteristics of
Minerals
3. Orderly crystalline structure. Minerals are
crystalline substances, which means their
atoms are arranged in an orderly, repetitive
manner (FIGURE 2.2). This orderly packing of
atoms is reflected in the regularly shaped
objects called crystals. Some naturally
occurring solids, such as volcanic glass
(obsidian), lack a repetitive atomic structure
and are not considered minerals.
Characteristics of Minerals
4. Generally inorganic. Inorganic crystalline solids, such as ordinary
table salt (halite), that are found naturally in the ground are considered
minerals. (Organic compounds, on the other hand, are generally not.
Sugar, a crystalline solid like salt but which comes from sugarcane or
sugar beets, is a common example of such an organic compound.)
Many marine animals secrete inorganic compounds, such as calcium
carbonate (calcite), in the form of shells and coral reefs. If these
materials are buried and become part of the rock record, they are
considered minerals by geologists.
Characteristics of Minerals
5. Can be represented by a chemical formula. Most minerals are
chemical compounds having compositions that can be expressed by a
chemical formula. For example, the common mineral quartz has the
formula SiO2, which indicates that quartz consists of silicon (Si) and
oxygen (O) atoms in a ratio of one-to-two.
Minerals
Five Characteristics of Minerals
1. Naturally occurring,
2. Inorganic,
3. Solid,
4. Definite chemical composition, and
5. Orderly internal crystal structure.
Optical properties of minerals
• Birefringent or doubly refractive
• Minerals which have the property of dividing a ray of light into two is
said to be birefringent or doubly refractive.
Physical properties of minerals
• Optical Properties
• Lustre
• The ability to transmit light
• Colour
• Streak

• Crystal Shape or Habit or Form

• Mineral Strength
• tenacity,
• hardness,
• cleavage, and
• Fracture
• Density and Specific Gravity
Optical Properties

Of the many optical properties of minerals, their luster, their ability to

transmit light, their color, and their streak are most frequently used for
mineral identification.
Lustre
Lustre is the appearance of a mineral surface
in reflected light. It may be described as
metallic, as in pyrite or galena;
glassy or vitreous, as in quartz;
resinous or greasy, as in opal;
pearly, as in talc; or silky, as in fibrous
minerals such as asbestos and satin-spar
(fibrous gypsum).
Minerals with no lustre are described as dull.
• Several other terms are used to describe the luster of nonmetallic
specimens, including the following:
• Vitreous—resembles the luster or sheen of glass
• Resinous—resembles a resin like amber or dried tree sap
• Silky—a silk-like reflection of light from thin parallel mineral fibers
• Pearly—resembling the luster of a pearl
• Earthy(dull)—lacking reflection, like dry soil
• Waxy—resembles wax
• Satin—resembles satin cloth
• Greasy—looks like it is covered in a thin film of oil or grease
THE ABILITY TO TRANSMIT LIGHT.
Another optical property used in the identification of minerals is the
ability to transmit light. When no light is transmitted, the mineral is
described as opaque; when light, but not an image, is transmitted
through a mineral it is said to be translucent. When both light and an
image are visible through the sample, the mineral is described as
transparent.
Colour
Some minerals have a distinctive
colour, for example the green colour
of chlorite, but most naturally
occurring minerals contain traces of
substances which modify their
colour. Thus quartz, which is
colourless when pure, may be
white, grey, pink or yellow, when
certain chemical impurities or
included particles are present.
Streak
The colour of a mineral in the
powdered condition is known as the
streak. This may be produced by
rubbing the mineral on a piece of
unglazed porcelain, called a streak-
plate, or other rough surface.

Streak is useful, for example, in

distinguishing the various oxides of
iron;
haematite (Fe2O3) gives a red streak,
limonite (hydrated Fe2O3) a brown,
and
magnetite(Fe3O4) a grey streak.
Crystal Shape or Habit or Form
Mineralogists use the term crystal shape or habit to refer to the
common or characteristic shape of a crystal or aggregate of crystals.
Form
Under this heading come a number of terms
which are commonly used to describe
various shapes assumed by minerals in
groups or cluster.
Acicular
Botryoidal
Nodular
Dendritic
Reniform
Tabular
Form
Acicular - in fine needle-like crystals (also
described as filiform), e.g. schorl, natrolite.
Form
Botryoidal - consisting of spheroidal
aggregations, somewhat resembling a bunch
of grapes; e.g. chalcedony. The curved
surfaces are boundaries of the ends of many
crystal fibres arranged in radiating clusters.
Form
Concretionary or nodular - terms applied to
minerals found in detached masses of
spherical, ellipsoidal, or irregular shape; e.g.
the flint nodules of the chalk.
Form
Dendritic - moss-like or tree-like forms,
generally produced by the deposition of a
mineral in thin veneers on joint planes or in
crevices; e.g. dendritic deposits of
manganese oxide.
Form
Reniform - kidney-shaped, the rounded
surfaces of the mineral resembling those of
kidneys; e.g. kidney iron ore, a variety of
haematite.
Form
Tabular - showing broad flat surfaces; e.g.
the 6-sided crystals of mica.
Mineral Strength

How easily minerals break or deform under stress is determined by the

type and strength of the chemical bonds that hold the crystals together.
Mineralogists use terms including tenacity, hardness, cleavage, and
fracture to describe mineral strength and how minerals break when
stress is applied.
Tenacity
• The term tenacity describes a mineral’s toughness, or its resistance to
breaking or deforming.
• The response of a mineral to a hammer blow, to cutting with a knife and to
bending is described by its tenacity.
• Minerals that can be beaten into new shapes are malleable; e.g. the native
metals of gold, silver and copper.
• Most minerals are brittle and fracture when struck with a hammer. A few
brittle minerals can be cut with a knife and are described as sectile.
• Flakes of mica can be bent and yet return to their flat tabular shape when
free to do so: they are both flexible and elastic: cleavage flakes of gypsum
are flexible but inelastic.
Descriptive terms for the tenacity of minerals
• Brittle-shatters easily.
• Flexible- can be bent, but will not return to original position af ter
pressure is released.
• Elastic- can be bent, and returns to original position after pressure is
released.
• Malleable-can be hammered into thin sheets.
• Sectile- can be cut by a knife.
• Ductile- can be drawn into thin wires.
Hardness
Hardness, or resistance to abrasion, is
measured relative to a standard scale often
minerals, known as Mohs' Scale of Hardness.
These minerals are chosen so that their
hardness increases in the order 1 to 10.
Hardness is tested by attempting to scratch
the minerals of the scale with the specimen
under examination.
A mineral which scratches calcite, for
example, but not fluorspar, is said to have a
hardness between 3 and 4, or H = 3-4.
 CLEAVAGE
In the crystal structure of many minerals, some
atomic bonds are weaker than others. It is along
these weak bonds that minerals tend to break
when they are stressed. Cleavage(Kleiben =
carve) is the tendency of a mineral to break
(cleave) along planes of weak bonding. Not all
minerals have cleavage, but those that do can be
identified by the relatively
The simplest type of cleavage is exhibited by the
micas (FIGURE 2.15).
Because these minerals have very weak bonds in
one direction, they cleave to form thin, flat
sheets. Some minerals have excellent cleavage in
one, two, three, or more directions, whereas
others exhibit fair or poor cleavage, and still
others have no cleavage at all. When minerals
break evenly in more than one direction,
cleavage is described by the number of cleavage
directions and the angle(s) at which they meet
Cleavage
Many minerals possess a tendency to
split easily in certain regular
directions, and yield smooth plane
surfaces called cleavage planes when
thus broken. These directions depend
on the arrangement of the atoms in a
mineral , and are parallel to definite
crystal faces. Perfect, good, distinct,
and imperfect are terms used to
describe the quality of mineral
cleavage.
Mica, for example, has a perfect
cleavage by means of which it can be
split into very thin flakes;
feldspars have two sets of good
cleavage planes;
Calcite has three directions of
cleavage.
Fracture
Fracture is the way a substance breaks where
not controlled by cleavage. Minerals that have
no cleavage commonly have an irregular
fracture.
The nature of a broken surface of a mineral is
known as fracture, the break being irregular and
independent of cleavage. It is sometimes
characteristic of a mineral and, also, a fresh
fracture shows the true colour of a mineral.
Fracture is described as conchoidal, when the
mineral breaks with a curved surface, e.g. in
quartz and flint;
Even, when it is nearly flat;
Uneven, when it is rough;
Hackly when the surface carries small sharp
irregularities. Most minerals show uneven
fracture.
Density and Specific Gravity

Density, an important property of matter, is defined as mass per unit volume. Mineralogists often
use a related measure called specific gravity to describe the density of minerals. Specific gravity is a
number representing the ratio of a mineral’s weight to the weight of an equal volume of water.
Most common rock-forming minerals have a specific gravity of between 2 and 3. For example,
quartz has a specific gravity of 2.65. By contrast, some metallic minerals such as pyrite, native
copper, and magnetite are more than twice as dense and thus have more than twice the specific
gravity as quartz. Galena, an ore of lead, has a specific gravity of roughly 7.5, whereas the specific
gravity of 24-karat gold is approximately 20.
Mineral Groups
Over 4000 minerals have been named, and several new ones are
identified each year.
Collectively, these few make up most of the rocks of Earth’s crust and,
as such, are often referred to as the rock-forming minerals.
• Although less abundant, many other minerals are used extensively in
the manufacture of products and are called economic minerals.
Mineral Groups
It is worth noting that only eight elements
make up the vast majority of the rock-
forming minerals and represent more than
98 percent (by weight) of the continental
crust (FIGURE 2.20).
These elements, in order of abundance, are
oxygen (O),
• silicon (Si),
• aluminum (Al),
• iron (Fe),
• calcium (Ca),
• sodium (Na),
• potassium (K), and
• magnesium (Mg).
Mineral Groups
• As shown in Figure 2.20, silicon and
oxygen are by far the most common
elements in Earth’s crust. Furthermore,
these two elements readily combine to
form the basic “building block” for the
most common mineral group, the
silicates.
• More than 800 silicate minerals are
known, and they account for more than
90 percent of Earth’s crust.
• Because other mineral groups are far less
abundant in Earth’s crust than the
silicates, they are often grouped together
under the heading nonsilicates.
The rock-forming minerals

• Silicates, oxides, and carbonates are the main rock-forming minerals.

• Minerals that are the dominant constituents of rocks are called essential rock-forming minerals.
Quartz, feldspars, amphiboles, pyroxenes, micas, chlorite, nepheline, olivine, serpentine, talc,
calcite, dolomite, gypsum, magnetite, and hematite are essential rock-forming minerals.
• In addition to these minerals, there are others that occur in rocks in minor proportions. These are
known as accessory rock-forming minerals, which include garnet, tourmaline, epidote, zircon,
apatite, rutile, ilmenite, magnetite, hematite, pyrite, staurolite, kyanite, and sillimanite.
The rock-forming minerals

• Silicates,
• Oxides, and
• Carbonates
are the main rock-forming minerals.
The rock-forming minerals
• Minerals that are the dominant constituents of rocks are called essential rock-forming minerals.
• quartz,
• feldspars,
• amphiboles,
• pyroxenes,
• micas,
• chlorite,
• nepheline,
• olivine,
• serpentine,
• talc,
• calcite,
• dolomite,
• gypsum, magnetite, and hematite are essential rock-forming minerals.
The rock-forming minerals
• In addition to these minerals, there are others that occur in rocks in minor proportions. These are known as accessory rock-
forming minerals.
• garnet,
• tourmaline,
• epidote,
• zircon,
• apatite,
• rutile,
• ilmenite,
• magnetite,
• hematite,
• pyrite,
• staurolite,
• kyanite, and sillimanite.
The rock-forming minerals: Silicates

• The silicates make up about 95 percent of the Earth’s crust and upper mantle, occurring as the
major constituents of most igneous rocks and in appreciable quantities in sedimentary and
metamorphic varieties as well. They also are important constituents of lunar samples, meteorites,
and most asteroids. In addition, planetary probes have detected their occurrence on the surfaces
of Mercury, Venus, and Mars.
• Of the approximately 600 known silicate minerals, only the feldspars, amphiboles, pyroxenes,
micas, olivines, feldspathoids, and zeolites are significant in rock formation.
• Because other mineral groups are far less abundant in Earth’s crust than the silicates, they are
often grouped together under the heading non silicates.
Silicates
• The basic structural unit of all silicate minerals is the silicon
tetrahedron in which one silicon atom is surrounded by and bonded
to four oxygen atoms, each at the corner of a regular tetrahedron.
Common Silicate Minerals
The major groups of silicate minerals and common examples are given in FIGURE 2.24.
The feldspars are, by far, the most plentiful silicate group, comprising more than 50 percent of
Earth’s crust.
Quartz, the second most abundant mineral in the continental crust, is the only common mineral
made completely of silicon and oxygen.
Most silicate minerals form when molten rock cools and crystallizes. Cooling can occur at or near
Earth’s surface (low temperature and pressure) or at great depths (high temperature and pressure).
The environment during crystallization and the chemical composition of the molten rock determine,
to a large degree, which minerals are produced. For example, the silicate mineral olivine crystallizes
at high temperatures, whereas quartz crystallizes at much lower temperatures.
The Light Silicates

The light (or nonferromagnesian) silicates are generally light in color and have a specific gravity of
about 2.7, which is considerably less than the dark (ferromagnesian) silicates. These differences are
mainly attributable to the presence or absence of iron and magnesium.
• Feldspar,
• Quartz.
• Muscovite.
• Clay Minerals.
The Dark Silicates

The dark (or ferromagnesian) silicates are those minerals containing ions of iron and/or magnesium
in their structure.
Because of their iron content, ferromagnesian silicates are dark in color and have a greater specific
gravity, between3.2 and 3.6, than nonferromagnesian silicates.
The most common dark silicate minerals are:
• olivine,
• the pyroxenes,
• the amphiboles,
• dark mica (biotite), and
• garnet.
Important Nonsilicate Minerals
• Nonsilicate minerals are typically divided into groups, based on the negatively charged ion or
complex ion that the members have in common.
• Although the nonsilicates make up only about 8 percent of Earth’s crust, some minerals, such as
gypsum, calcite, and halite, occur as constituents in sedimentary rocks in significant amounts.
Non silicate minerals
Non silicate minerals
Non silicate minerals
Non silicate minerals
Non silicate minerals
Non silicate minerals