PROCESS OF FORMATION OF
MINERALS
How Minerals Form
The minerals that
people use today
have been forming
deep in Earth’s crust
or on the surface for
several billion years.
In general, minerals can form in two ways:
through crystallization of melted materials,
and through crystallization of materials
dissolved in water.
Crystallization
• is the process by which atoms are arranged
to form a material with a crystal shape.
• Minerals can form as hot magma cools deep
inside the crust, or as lava hardens on the
surface.
• When these liquids cool to the solid state, they
form mineral crystals.
• The size of these crystals depends on several
factors.
The rate at which magma cools,
The amount of gas magma contains, and
The chemical composition of magma all affect
crystal size.
• Slow cooling leads to the formation of minerals
with large crystals.
• If the crystals remain undisturbed while cooling
deep below the surface, they grow according to
a regular pattern.
• Magma closer to the surface loses heat energy
much faster than magma that hardens deep
below ground.
• With rapid cooling, there is no time for magma
to form large crystals.
• If magma erupts to the surface, the lava will also
cool quickly and form minerals with small
crystals.
• Sometimes, the elements that form a mineral
dissolve in hot water.
• These dissolved minerals form solutions.
SOLUTION
- a mixture in which one substance dissolves in
another.
• When a hot water solution begins to cool, the
elements and compounds leave the solution
and crystallize as minerals.
• Pure metals that crystallize underground from
hot water solutions often form veins.
VEIN
- is a narrow channel or slab of a mineral that is
sharply different from the surrounding rock.
• Deep underground, solutions of hot water and
metals often follow fractures, or cracks, within
the rock.
• Then the metals crystallize into veins.
• Many minerals form from solutions at places
where tectonic plates spread apart along the
mid-ocean ridge.
• The hot magma heats ocean water that seeps
underground.
• The heated water dissolves minerals.
• When the solution billows out of vents called
“chimneys,” minerals crystallize in the cold
sea.
• Minerals can also form when solutions
evaporate.
• For example, thick deposits of the mineral
halite, or table salt, formed over millions of
years when ancient seas slowly evaporated.
• In addition to halite, other useful minerals
form by the evaporation of seawater, including
gypsum, calcite crystals, and minerals
containing potassium.
• Earth’s crust is made up mostly of the common
rock-forming minerals combined in various
types of rock.
• Less common and rare minerals, however, are
not distributed evenly throughout the crust.
• Instead, there are several processes that
concentrate minerals in deposits.
• Many valuable minerals are found in or near
areas of volcanic activity and mountain
building.
COAL AND PETROLEUM
What’s coal and Petroleum?
Coal and Petroleum are sources of energy
that are non- renewable. They were made in
the nature a long time before and they will
finish after long-time use
COAL
• Coal is a combustible sedimentary, organic
rock, formed from vegetation.
• In other words coal is a fossil fuel created
from the remains of plants that lived
millions of years ago.
• It is considered as a non renewable source
of energy because it takes too much time to
form.
Types of coal
Lignite
• Often referred to
as brown coal, is
a soft, brown,
combustible,
sedimentary rock
formed from
naturally
compressed peat.
Bituminous Coal
• Bituminous or black coal is a realtively
soft coal containing a tarlike substance
called bitumen or asphalt.
• It is of higher quality
than lignite but poorer
quality than anthracite
Sub-bituminous coal
• Also called black
lignite, generally dark
brown to black coal
• It is a type of coal
whose properties range
from those of lignite to
those of bituminois coal
• Used primarily as fuel for stream-electric
power generation
Anthracite
• Often referred to as hard
coal, is a hard, compact
variety of coal that has a
submetallic luster.
• It has the highest carbon
content, the fewest
impurities, and the
highest energy density
of all types of coal and
is the highest ranking of
coals
Formation of coal
Organic matter derived mostly from land
plants accumulates in low-energy
environment (like a swamp).
Oxidative decay uses up lots of oxygen,
rendering the sediment pore waters devoid
of oxygen (anoxic).
Gentle cooking and pressing (lithification)
as a result of increasing burial depth
remove the pore water and increase
carbon content (due to release of volatile
components of the organic molecules).
Low grade coal (lignite) cooked very little.
High grade coal (anthracite) cooked a lot
(close to being a metamorphic rock).
Lower grade coal tends to contain minerals
such as pyrite, which formed under the
reducing (low-oxygen) conditions.
Uses of Coal
Fuel: Canada does not use as much coal as many other
countries do for fuel (due to large hydroelectric and nuclear
power developments and small population). However, coal is a
very important fuel throughout Asia and remains highly
significant in the U.S.A, this country having the largest known
coal reserves in the world.
Coke: Bituminous coal that is cooked (charred) to remove
nearly all of the remaining volatiles is transformed into a spongy
substance called coke (some of the removed gases, e.g.
methane, can themselves be used as fuel).
Coke is predominantly burned in blast furnaces to smelt iron
from iron ore because it provides the high temperature and
gases required for the smelting process (prevents oxidation of
the elemental molten iron). It is also used in the production of
cement (cooking of limestone and silica).
Byproducts: A number of by-products from processed coal
are also useful. These include organic substances used to
make some plastics, medicines, and solvents.
Artificial sweeteners such as saccharin and aspartame are
also derived from by-products of coal !
Aspartame Aspartame products
PETROLEUM
Origin and occurrence of
petroleum
• Petroleum has an organic origin and is found in
sedimentary basins, shallow depressions and in
the seas (past and present).
• Most of the oil reserves in India are associated
with anticlines and fault traps in the sedimentary
rock formations of tertiary times, about 3 million
years ago.
• Some recent sediment, less than one million
years also show evidence of incipient oil.
• Oil and natural gas originated from animal or
vegetable matter contained in shallow marine
sediments, such as sands, silts and clays
deposited during the periods when land and
aquatic life was abundant in various forms,
especially the minor microscopic forms of flora
and fauna.
END OF REPORT
