 MINERALS

Characteristics of Minerals

1. NATURALLY OCCURING - it is a product of Earth's natural processes.

2. INORGANIC - It must be product of Earth's physical processes.
3. HOMOGENEOUS SOLID - have definite shape and volume.
4. CRYSTALLINE STRUCTURE - atoms are arranged in order of increasing pattern.
5. CHEMICAL COMPOSITION - represented by chemical formula

 MINERALS
- A naturally occurring, Inorganic solid with an orderly crystalline structure and
a definite chemical composition

 What are Minerals?

- Minerals are the building blocks of rocks.
- Mineralogist use the criteria to determine whether a material is classified as
a mineral or not.

 Dolomite
- It type of limestone, the carbonate fraction of which is dominated by the
mineral dolomite, calcium magnesium carbonate (CaMg(CO3 )2)
- also known as calcium magnesium carbonate, is a non-metallic material used
in manufacturing bricks, mortar, cement, concrete, plastics, paving
materials, and other construction materials.
- The rock originates in warm, shallow, marine environments and is believed to
form when limestone is modified by magnesium-rich groundwater, according
to geologist Hobart King.
- It has low solubility, which makes it resistant to acid content of rain and soil.

-ROCKS MINERALS & GEMS

 What are their differences?

- Rocks and minerals are known to be the building blocks of our active planet.

 Minerals
- naturally occurring solid-substances that have a crystal structure and unique
chemical composition.
- naturally occurring substances composed of one or more elements.

 Rocks
 - natural material composed of two or more minerals.
- They don't have a specific chemical composition.

 Gems
- are usually minerals that human find attractive especially and valuable.
- Categorized by color, clarity, and hardness.
- a precious or semi-precious mineral which has been cut and polished.

 MINERALS
- They make up Earth's solid part and provide us valuable resources.
- Scientists have identified over 4,000 different minerals.
- A small group of these minerals make up almost 90% of the rocks of Earth's
crust which are known as the common rock-forming minerals.

 COMMON ROCK-FORMING MINERALS

To be considered a common rock-forming mineral, a mineral must be:

- one of the most abundant minerals in Earth's crust

- one of the original minerals present at the time of a
crustal rock's formation
- an important mineral in determining classification of
a rock

 Common Rock-forming Minerals

- Plagioclase feldspars 39%
- Alkali feldspars 12%
- Quartz 12%
- Pyroxenes 11%
- Amphiboles 5%
- Micas 5%
- Clays 5%
- Olivine
- Calcite
- Dolomite
This chart shows the relative abundance of the common rock forming minerals in
some of Earth's most abundant rock types.
  Rock-Forming Minerals in Major Rock Types:
- Basalt and gabbro account for most of the rock in the oceanic crust, granite
(rhyolite) and andesite (diorite) represent abundant rock types of the
continental crust.
- Sandstone, shale and carbonates represent the common materials in the
sedimentary cover of continents and ocean basins.

 MINERALOGY
- The study of minerals and their properties (chemical and physical).
- is a subject of geology specializing in the scientific study of the chemistry,
crystal structure, and physical (including optical) properties of minerals and
mineralized artifacts.
- Specific studies within mineralogy include the processes of mineral origin and
formation, classification of minerals, their geographical distribution, as well
as their utilization.

HOW TO CLASSIFY MINERALS?

 MINERALOGIST
- A scientist trained in mineralogy or a person who studies minerals.
- Mineralogists determine the physical and chemical properties of minerals,
how to efficiently retrieve them from ores and how to process them.

PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF MINERALS

 PHYSICAL PROPERTIES of MINERALS

are the characteristics which can be observed and determined easily:
- Color
- Crystal Form/Habit
- Hardness
- Streak
- Luster
- Cleavage or Fracture
- Specific Gravity
- Other properties (taste, odor..)
 COLOR
- It is the most obvious property but not always definitive.
- It can also tell the impurities present in a mineral.
- Example, the same mineral can be in different colors because of different
impurities.
- It is reliable for opaque and metallic minerals but not on transparent or
translucent minerals.

 HARDNESS
- It is a measure of the resistance of a mineral (not specifically surface) to
abrasion.
- It is measured using a hardness scale designed in 1892 by Friedrich Mohs, a
German geologist/ mineralogist which is known as the Mohs Scale of
Hardness
 Mohs Scale of Hardness
- It measures the scratch resistance of various minerals from a scale of 1 to
10, based on the ability of a harder material/mineral to scratch a softer one.

 STREAK
- It refers to the color displayed in finely powdered form left behind when
rubbed on a rough surface.
- It is definitive.

 CLEAVAGE or FRACTURE

- CLEAVAGE is how smoothly the minerals

break. If the minerals break apart in similar
pieces, it is said to have good cleavage.

- FRACTURE is when a mineral breaks like a

piece of glass with uneven, jagged edges,

 LUSTER
- it is the quality and intensity of reflected light exhibited by the mineral.

A. Metallic Luster - generally opaque and exhibit a resplendent shine similar to a

polished metal

B. Non-metallic Luster - vitreous (glassy), adamantine (brilliant/diamond-like),

resinous, silky, pearly, dull (earthy), greasy, among others.

 CRYSTAL FORM or HABIT

- It is the morphology of the crystal growth.

 CRYSTAL HABIT
- Refers to the overall shape or growth pattern of the mineral. It can be
described as elongate platy.

 DIAPHANEITY/AMOUNT OF TRANSPARENCY
- Ability to allow light to pass.

TRANSPARENCY - Transmitting Light Through Minerals

A mineral can be:

TRANSPARENT - Clear, see right through it when it is sliced thin
TRANSLUCENT - See shapes and shadows through it when it is sliced thin.
 OPAQUE - Can't see light through it at all when it is sliced thin

 TENACITY
- Describes the minerals reaction to stress.
- Tenacity is the characteristic that describes how the particles of a mineral
hold together resist separation.

Brittleness - a mineral turns into powder

Malleability - a mineral can be flattened by pounding with a hammer.

Ductility - A mineral can be stretched into wire.

Flexible but inelastic -Minerals are bent but they remain in the new
position.

Flexible and elastic - Minerals are bent, and they bring back to their
original position.

 SPECIFIC GRAVITY
- It is the ratio of the density of the mineral and the density of water
- This parameter indicates how many times more the mineral weighs
compared to an equal amount of water (SG 1).

 Other Properties:
- MAGNETISM (ex: magnetite is strongly magnetic)
- ODOR (ex: sulfur has distinctive smell)
- TASTE (ex: halite is salty)
- REACTION TO ACID (ex: calcite fizzes with acid as with dolomite but in
powdered form)

PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL PROPERTIES OF MINERALS

Minerals can be distinguished using their physical and chemical properties.

 1. Crystal Habit
- refers to the overall shape or growth pattern of the mineral.
- It can be described as equant, elongate and platy.

Equant – three dimensions of the mineral have about the same length, like that of a
cube or sphere. (ei. garnet)
Elongate – forms prismatic or prism-like crystals that are thicker than the needle as
in a pencil. (ei. Indicolite)

Platy – looks like a flattened and thin crystal (like plate). (ei. Wulfenite)

 2. Luster
- describes the appearance of a mineral when light is reflected from its
surface.
- It can be described as opaque, transparent, dull, or shiny.

Metallic luster - is opaque and very reflective like gold and silver.

Nonmetallic luster - is dull, silky, greasy, and pearly like silicates.

 3. Cleavage and Fracture

- Cleavage refers to the tendency of minerals to break along very smooth, flat
and shiny surfaces.
- It can be described as one, two, three, four or all direction.
- A mineral fracture may break along random, irregular surfaces.
- It can be classified as conchoidal, uneven, hackly, splintery, and earthy.
- Some minerals break only by fracturing, while others both cleave and
fracture.

Biotite and mica - have one direction, orthoclase has two directions, galena has
three directions and fluorite has four directions.

Quartz - has a conchoidal fracture while asbestos has a splintery fracture.

 4.Hardness
- is a measure of the mineral’s resistance to scratching.
- Harder minerals will scratch softer minerals.
- Friedrich Mohs in 1812 ranked minerals according to hardness as shown in
Table 1.
- He selected ten minerals of distinctly different hardness that ranged from a
very soft mineral (talc) to a very hard mineral (diamond).

 5. Color
- is one of the most obvious properties of a mineral but not reliable alone.
- Some minerals come in just one color, while others come in many colors and
varieties.
- Quartz varies widely in color, due to minor (parts per billion) impurities and
even defects in its crystalline structure.

 6. Streak
- refers to the color of the mineral in its powdered form, which may or may not
be the same color as the mineral.
 - According to Bayo-ang (2016) streak is obtained by scratching the mineral on
an unpolished piece of white porcelain called a streak plate.
- When the excess powder is blown away, what remains is the color of the
streak.
- Streak is a more reliable property than color as streak shows the true color of
minerals.
- It does not vary even if color does.

Additional Properties (There are other properties of minerals.)

 Magnetism
- Some minerals are attracted to a hand magnet.
- To test a mineral for magnetism, just put the magnet and mineral together
and see if they are attracted.
- Magnetite is the only common mineral that is always strongly magnetic.

 Striations
- presence of very thin, parallel grooves.
- The grooves are present in only one of the two sets of cleavages and are best
seen with a hand lens.
- They may not be visible on all parts of a cleavage surface.
- Before you decide if there are no striations, look at all parts of all visible
cleavage surfaces, moving the sample around as you look wherein light is
reflected from these surfaces at different angles.

 Specific Gravity
- is the weight of that mineral divided by the weight of an equal volume of
water.
- The specific gravity of water equals 1.0. Most silicate, or rock-forming,
minerals have specific gravities of 2.6 to 3.4; the ore minerals are usually
heavier, with specific gravities of 5 to 8.
- For most minerals, specific gravity is not a particularly noteworthy feature,
but for some, high specific gravity is distinctive (examples are barite and
galena).

 Taste, Odor, Feel

– Some minerals have distinctive taste (halite is salt, and tastes like it).
– Some give off a distinctive odor (the powder of some sulfide minerals, such
as sphalerite, a zinc sulfide, smells like rotten eggs), and some have a
distinctive feel (talc feels slippery).
 A. 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.
- Some minerals, especially carbonate minerals, react visibly with acid.
(Usually, a dilute hydrochloric acid [HCl] is used.)
- When a drop of dilute hydrochloric acid is placed on calcite, it readily bubbles
or effervesces, releasing carbon dioxide.
- Some are toxic like cinnabar and soluble in water like halite.
- Metallic sulfide minerals form into sulfuric acid when exposed to air and
water.
- Uranium and thorium containing minerals like Autunite (hydrated calcium
uranium phosphate) and Thorianite (thorium dioxide) are radioactive.
- Metals like magnesium are flammable.
- Furthermore, Cuarto (2016) classified minerals according to their chemical
composition using Dana System which divides minerals into eight basic
classes.
- The classes are native elements, silicates, oxides, sulfides, sulfates, halides,
carbonates, phosphates, and mineraloids.
- This classification shows the chemical composition of minerals
1. Which of the following mineral characteristics refers to the tendency to break

along very smooth surfaces?

a. Cleavage

b. Color

c. Hardness

d. Luster

2. Silicates are one of the most abundant minerals on Earth. Which of the following
example is a silicate?

a. Amber

b. Apatite

c. Feldspar

d. Magnetite

3. Quartz are composed of silicon and oxygen. Which common group minerals do
quarts belong?

a. Oxide

b. Silicate

c. Sulfate

d. Sulfide

4. Gypsum, also known as dessert rose, has a chemical name of Calcium sulfate

dehydrate. To which group of rock-forming mineral does it belong?

a. Oxides

b. Silicates

c. Sulfates

d. Sulfides

5. Which group of minerals do common table salts belong?

a.Carbonates
b.Fluorites

c.Halides

d.Sulfide

6. Which of the following is NOT a physical property of minerals?

a. Habit

b. Luster

c. Oxidizing potential

d. Streak

7. Which of the following is the most abundant element found in rocks?

a. Carbon

b. Hydrogen

c. Oxygen

d. Silicon

8. Which of the following is the correct pairing?

a. Gypsum: Sulfate

b. Feldspar: Oxide

c. Magnetite: Silicate

d. Pyrite: Sulfide

9. Which is the hardest mineral?

a. Calcite

b. Diamond

c. Quartz

d. Talc

10.What physical property of minerals is considered the least realable in

identifying minerals?

a. Color

b. Hardness
c. Specific gravity

d. Streak

11.What property of minerals determines its TRUE color?

a. Color

b. Hardness

c. Specific gravity

d. Streak

12.Anton hammers a piece of unidentified mineral. The mineral breaks into two parts
with uneven surfaces. What property of mineral does it shows?

a. Hardness

b. Specific Gravity

c. Streak

d. Fracture

13.Which statement is incorrect about minerals?

a. It is organic.

b. It has a crystal lattice.

c. It is naturally occurring.

d. It has a definite composition

14.What class of mineral is considered as the largest and most abundant group?

a. Oxide class

b. Silicate class

c. Sulphate class

d. Sulfide class

15.Dan scratched a piece of unknown mineral in a glass plate. He observed that it

produced a powdery substance. What property of mineral did he test?
a. Color

b. Hardness

c. Specific gravity

d. Streak

STREAK 1. The color of the mineral in its powdered form.

HABIT 2. The overall shape or growth pattern of the mineral.

COLOR 3. One of the most obvious properties of a mineral.

HARDNESS 4. The measure of the mineral’s resistance to scratching.

CLEAVAGE 5. The tendency of minerals to break along very smooth, flat, and shiny
surfaces.

1. Given the list of minerals below, what is the correct arrangement from hardest to
softest according to Moh’s Scale?

1. Quartz 2. Calcite 3. Flourite 4. Gypsum

a. 1, 3, 2, 4 (Quartz, Florite, Calcite, Gypsum)

b. 1, 3, 4, 2 (Quartz, Florite , Gypsum, Calcite)

c. 4, 2, 3, 1 (Gypsum, Calcite , Florite ,Quartz)

d. 4, 2, 1, 3 (Gypsum, Calcite, Quartz, Florite)

2. Angela tests a mineral sample by scratching it to white and black porcelain

plate to determine its true color. What property of minerals did she test?

a. Color

b. Hardness

c. Specific gravity

d. Streak

3. James Dana developed a classification scheme for minerals. Which of the following
is the basis of his classification?

a. Color of mineral
b. Hardness of the mineral

c. Location of mineral occurrence

d. Chemical composition of the minerals

4. Which group of minerals is most common in the earth's crust?

a. Ore minerals

b. Oxides

c. Silicates

d. Sulfates

5. One of the most abundant minerals on Earth quartz. Which physical property

of quartz could not be used to verify its authenticity?

a. Cleavage

b. Color

c. Habit

d. Hardness

6. Which of the following is not a reliable physical property of minerals?

a. Cleavage

b. Color

c. Specific Gravity

d. Hardness

7. Diamonds are used in jewelry because of its ability to reflect light that cause

its brilliance or shining effect. What physical property exhibited in the

aforementioned statement?

a. Cleavage

b. Hardness

c. Luster

d. Streak

8. Which of the following mineral properties relates why talc is used as a

component for baby powder?

a. Cleavage

b. Fracture

c. Hardness

d. Streak

9. An unknown mineral sample was tested by putting a drop of HCl solution on

the surface of the container. After few minutes there was a bubble formed.

What chemical property of mineral was tested in the unknown mineral

sample?

a. Odor

b. Reaction to acid

c. Specific gravity

d. Striations

10. Scientists use a scale of 1-10 to show the hardness of a mineral. What

number would be given to the hardest?

a. 1

b. 5

c. 6

d. 10

11. Which refers to the color of the mineral in its powdered form, which may or

may not be the same color as the mineral?

a. Cleavage

b. Color

c. Luster

d. Streak

12. What property of mineral is shown if a rock breaks into an irregular

pattern?
a. Specific Gravity

b. Fracture

c. Hardness

d. Luster

13. Which of the following statement is TRUE about silicates?

a. brightly colored minerals

b. largest group of minerals

c. very soft and easily dissolved in water

d. made of carbon, oxygen, and metallic element

14. Which of the following is not included in the group?

a. Copper

b. Gold

c. Gypsum

d. Silver

15. Salt is in cooking to enhance food taste. Which group of minerals does it

belong?

a. Carbonates

b. Florites

c. Halides

d. Sulfides

1. Pyrite is a yellowish mineral that looks like gold and is commonly called fool's gold.
What is the property of mineral exhibited by pyrite wherein it reflects light and with a
metallic look?
A. Color

B. Hardness

C. Luster

D. Streak

2. Quartz can break other than along planes of cleavage. What property of minerals is
shown in this situation?

A. Cleavage

B. Fracture

C. Hardness

D. Streak

3. Some minerals like mica has surfaces with planes of weak bonds in the crystals.
Thus, its crystals can be peeled like layers of onion. What is the property exhibited by
mica?

A. Cleavage

B. Fracture

C. Hardness

D. Tenacity

4. Which property refers to the resistance of minerals to scratching?

A. Cleavage

B. Fracture

C. Hardness

D. Luster

5. What are the building blocks of rocks and it is mostly found in the geosphere?

A. elements.

B. minerals

C. ore

D. soil
6.In its powdered form, the mineral hematite is reddish. Which mineral property is
best described?

A. color

C. luster

B. hardness

D. streak

7. Which is not a property that can be used to identify a mineral?

A. hardness

B. luster

C. opaque

D. streak

8. What is the property of minerals that reflects light on its surface?

A. color

B. crystal structure

C. luster

D. streak

9. Which refers to a naturally occurring, inorganic solid that has a definite crystalline
structure and chemical composition?

A. compound

B. crystal

C. mineral

D. rocks

10. During the 1800's, miners can identify real gold from pyrite through biting the
surface of the mineral. If a bite mark is exhibited, then the said mineral is considered
real gold. What property is tested in this scenario?

A. cleavage

B. hardness

C. luster

D. streak color
11. What is a carbonate mineral that occurs in a different crystal form and is less
common than either calcite or dolomite?

A. aragonite

C. gypsum

B. calcite

D. silica

12. What constitutes the size, shape and arrangement of mineral grains in a rock?

A. cement

C. porosity

B. permeable origin

D. texture

13. Which of the following is not a characteristic of a mineral?

A. crystal structure

B. naturally occurring

C. organic

D. solid

14. What refers to the tendency for a mineral to break along flat surfaces?

A. cleavage

C. ductility

B. hardness

D. tenacity

15. What is the solid form of a mineral produced by a repeating pattern of atoms?

A. crystal

B. density

C. element

D. fracture
C 1. Mohs hardness scale A. describes the mineral
reaction to stress

D 2. Sectility B. true color of mineral

B 3. Streak C. a ranking of mineral

from softest hardest

E 4. Crystal D. ability of mineral to

be cut by knife

A 5. Tenacity E. repeating pattern in

minerals in solid