Geology Chapter 1

Minerals are naturally inorganic compounds, each with its own composition and physical properties. A rock is the most common and abundant material on Earth. Rocks usually consist of smaller crystals called minerals.

The four principal physical properties used to identify a mineral are hardness, cleavage, luster, fracture.

Moh's hardness scale is a series of ten minerals used as a standard in determining hardness.

The prime characteristic used to separate minerals into classes is their chemical composition; their dominant anions.

The cleavage surface is smooth and shiny and the fracture is due to weakness in the bonds between the atoms rather than a breakage. The crystal face is where crystal development such as twinning take place.

The eight elements that make up Earth's crust are oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, sodium, potassium, magnesium.

In the resulting molecule, both atoms have two electrons and a filled outer (valence) shell. These shared electrons form a bond between the two atoms. This chemical bond is a covalent bond; a pair of electrons shared between two atoms.

Silicate minerals is the most abundant mineral group on Earth. All silicate minerals have the same fundamental building block; silicon-oxygen tetrahedron.

An ore is a useful metallic, mineral that can be mined at a profit; naturally occurring solid material from which a metal or valuable mineral that can be extracted.

Isotopes are atoms with the same atomic number (atoms of the same element) that have different mass numbers. They have the same number of protons in the nucleus, but a different number of neutrons.

Atoms are the smallest particles that can't be split. Quarks and leptons are the smallest building blocks of matter (according to several articles on google).