Properties of Minerals

Mineral identification is done by checking for certain properties of minerals. Because each mineral has its own unique set of physical properties we can test a specimen and find out how it exhibits these properties. This list of characteristics along with a good field guide will improve your chances of identifying mineral specimens.

Some of the tests can be performed easily in the field, while others require laboratory equipment. For the beginning student of geology, there are a number of simple tests that can be used with a good degree of accuracy on common minerals. These tests are listed below. An explanation of each test follows.

The following physical properties of minerals can be easily used to help identify a mineral specimen:

1. Color
   
2. Streak
   
3. Hardness
   
4. Cleavage or Fracture
   
5. Crystalline Structure
   
6. Diaphaneity or Amount of Transparency
   
7. Magnetism
   
8. Luster
   
9. Specific Gravity
   

Color

Most minerals have a distinctive color that can be used for identification. In opaque minerals, the color tends to be more consistent, so learning the colors associated with these minerals can be very helpful in identification. Translucent to transparent minerals have a much more varied degree of color due to the presence of trace minerals. Therefore, color alone is not reliable as a single identifying characteristic.

Streak

Streak is the color of the mineral in powdered form. Streak shows the true color of the mineral. In large solid form, trace minerals can change the color appearance of a mineral by reflecting the light in a certain way. Trace minerals have little influence on the reflection of the small powdery particles of the streak.

Hardness

Hardness is one of the better properties of minerals to use for identifying a specimen. Hardness is a measure of the mineral's resistance to scratching. The Mohs scale is a set of 10 minerals whose hardness is known. The softest mineral, talc, has a Mohs scale rating of one. Diamond is the hardest mineral and has a rating of ten. Softer minerals can be scratched by harder minerals because the forces that hold the crystals together are weaker and can be broken by the harder mineral.

Cleavage & Fracture

Minerals tend to break along lines or smooth surfaces when hit sharply. Different minerals break in different ways showing different types of cleavage.

Cleavage is defined using two sets of criteria. The first set of criteria describes how easily the cleavage is obtained. Cleavage is considered perfect if it is easily obtained and the cleavage planes are easily distinguished. It is considered good if the cleavage is produced with some difficulty but has obvious cleavage planes. Finally it is considered imperfect if cleavage is obtained with difficulty and some of the planes are difficult to distinguish.

Fracture describes the quality of the cleavage surface. Most minerals display either uneven or grainy fracture, conchoidal (curved, shell-like lines) fracture, or hackly (rough, jagged) fracture.

Crystalline Structure

Mineral crystals occur in various shapes and sizes. The particular shape is determined by the arrangement of the atoms, molecules or ions that make up the crystal and how they are joined. This is called the crystal lattice. There are degrees of crystalline structure, in which the fibers of the crystal become increasingly difficult or impossible to see with the naked eye or the use of a hand lens. Microcrystalline and cryptocrystalline structures can only be viewed using high magnification. If there is no crystalline structure, it is called amorphous. However, there are very few amorphous crystals and these are only observed under extremely high magnification.

Transparency or Diaphaneity

Diaphaneity is a mineral's degree of transparency or ability to allow light to pass through it. The degree of transparency may also depend on the thickness of the mineral.

Magnetism

Magnetism is the property of minerals that allows a mineral to attract or repel other magnetic materials. It can be difficult to determine the differences between the various types of magnetism, but it is worth knowing that there are distinctions made.

Luster

Luster is the physical property of minerals that indicates how much the surface of a mineral reflects light. The luster of a mineral is affected by the brilliance of the light used to observe the mineral surface. Luster of a mineral is described in the following terms:

Specific Gravity

Specific Gravity of a mineral is a comparison or ratio of the weight of the mineral to the weight of an equal amount of water. The weight of the equal amount of water is found by finding the difference between the weight of the mineral in air and the weight of the mineral in water.

These are not foolproof tests. It pays to perform these tests more that once to improve accuracy. Even so mistaken identification is common even with the use of this list of physical properties of minerals. Many minerals are only slightly different in physical properties and can be easily confused. The same mineral may have several different forms leading to more confusion. Still these properties of minerals give us a starting place for identifying common mineral specimens.

Learn more about the properties of minerals at http://www.rocksandminerals4u.com/properties_of_minerals.html - You will also find Information, activities, and lesson plans on rocks, minerals, and crystals designed for students and teachers at http://www.rocksandminerals4u.com or buy mineral specimens at http://www.fossilicious.com/Rocks-Minerals-c-284.html

Tyrannosaurus Rex

Tyrannosaurus rex was a large theropod dinosaur. The animal was a carnivore (meat-eater), and lived in North America and Asia during late Cretaceous period, about 67 to 65 million years ago. It was one of the last dinosaurs, and probably went extinct during the the Cretaecous-Tertiary mass extinction.

An average Tyrannosaurus was about about 39 feet (11.9 metres) long, up to 20 feet (6.1 metres) tall, and weighed around 7 tons.

- The largest known Tyrannosaurus fossil specimen, yet found, is 42 feet (12.8 metres) long, nicknamed "Sue", and exhibited at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.

- The first Tyrannosaurus ever found, was found by Barnum Brown in 1902 in Montana.

Until the mid-1990s, it was generally thought that Tyrannosaurus was the largest land predator ever. Then, scientists discovered Gigantosaurus which lived was a 45 feet (13.8 metre) long carnivore that lived in Argentina about 100 million years ago. New research, first published in 2006, now suggests that Spinosaurus may have been even larger still: upto 51 feet (17 metres) long.

Since the 1960s, some scientists have argued that Tyrannosaurus was not a fearsome predator, but a slow-moving scavenger, that fed on carcasses killed by other carnivores. However, other scientists argue that the possibility of binocular vision (Tyrannosaurus rex has two forward facing eyes), and the relatively large areas of the brain associated with sight and smell, suggest it must have been an active predator.

The name Tyrannosaurus rex was chosen by Henry Fairfield Osborn in 1905, and like most scientific names of animals is derived from Ancient Greek. "Tyrannosaurus" means "tyrant lizard", "rex" means "king", and hence in combination "Tyrannosaurus rex" means "tyrant king lizard".

By S. Tanna. Tyrannosaurus rex was first published at http://www.dinosaurjungle.com/dinosaur_species_tyrannosaurus_rex.php - Visit this link for pictures, videos, books, posters, toys and a lot more information about dinosaurs!

To Build a Profitable Online Business You Need Several Mailing Lists

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You serve the Internet Marketing and home business market. You're teaching others Tortoise Supplies to build a profitable Ball Python Supplies businesses. Because you know Videogamesconsoles different businesses benefit from varied strategies, you can offer lists for the subgroups Sitemap Videogamesconsoles identified: Affiliate and Network Marketing, Ball Python Supplies Creation, self development, etc.

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NY Times Reports On Intelligent Design Movement

Creation Science made the front page of the New York Times on recently. Oh... did I say Creation Science? Actually the article on the front page of the New York Times was about the Intelligent Design Movement.

Many scientists, academics and intellectuals from a variety of religious backgrounds (or no religious background) have seen that the utter complexity of single-celled organisms could not possibly have come into existence by random processes. They have come to the conclusion that an "intelligent designer" must have brought life into existence.

They came to this conclusion on the basis of scientific inquiry and without reliance on religious teaching. They have chosen the name "Intelligent Design Theory" to describe their position because terms like "creationism" and "creation science" carry obvious religious connotations.

Prominent among the Intelligent Design theorists is Dr. Michael Behe, professor of biological sciences at Lehigh university in Pennsylvania. Dr. Behe wrote a book called "Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution."

In this book Dr. Behe shows the irreducible complexity of single-celled life and that every structure of the cell must come into existence simultaneously for the cell to survive. For example, if a cell nucleus somehow forms accidentally it will die because it doesn't have mitochondria or cytoplasm or cell membrane etc.

Dr. Behe maintains that only an intelligent designer could design and build the immensely complex microscopic structure that comprises a living single-celled organism.

Dr. Behe used the illustration of a mousetrap. A mousetrap consists of a small board, a spring, a bar, a lever, a bait holder and bait. If any part is missing it won't function. It won't perform the simple function of catching a mouse.

Now try to imagine a mousetrap forming randomly in nature. By a bizarre coincidence erosion from an iron deposit yields a steel spring attached to a curved steel bar. this naturally formed mechanism somehow, by blind chance becomes attached to a piece of wood.

Another piece of metal washes up and gets attached to it and acts like a lever to hold the spring open but since there's no bait holder or bait the system cannot catch any mice and the whole thing simply rusts away into oblivion.

A cell nucleus, mitochondria, protoplasm and cell wall are far more complex than any mousetrap. Each of these cellular organs with their unfathomable complexity of proteins, RNA, DNA and other biochemicals must form simultaneously and then be assembled immediately.

For any person to teach that this happened randomly goes beyond the absurd to an almost insane stretch of the imagination.The concept of irreducible complexity is not limited to an analysis of single celled organisms.

Any organ system in any living thing can be seen to be irreducibly complex. The wings of an insect, so exquisitely formed as a miniature flying machine with perfect size, surface area and musculature are useless unless all parts are present and fully formed. The same applies to the retractable fangs, venom bladder and mouth musculature of a rattlesnake.

Partial assembly of any of the organ systems described above would be disadvantageous to the organisms. Therefore a very large number of favorable genetic mutations must occur simultaneously. This is a statistical impossibility.

Early in the 20th century researchers irradiated fruit flies in order to cause genetic mutations and bring evolutionary change. Fruit flies have short life spans and many generations can be observed in a short period. The radiation only produced deformed fruit flies and the experiment was abandoned.

I chuckle when I read of the excitement at NASA over the recent discovery of the evidence that water once existed on Mars. Some secularists even express faith that life could have formed on Mars because water was there.

Knowing what scientists have discovered about the complexity of "simple" living organisms, any speculation that life could have formed randomly in water on Mars is just wishful thinking on the part of those who reject God as creator.

Dr. Behe has shown through his elucidation of irreducible complexity that life could not have formed randomly. The foundation of Darwinian evolution is therefore totally destroyed. This is just one more proof that there is an intelligent designer of life. This intelligent designer is God.

The evolutionists have no adequate answer to the questions raised by Dr. Behe. The evolutionists don't even have a generally accepted theory as to how a single-celled organism could form by means of a random step-by-step process!

Opposition to evolution has now become scientifically respectable. The real academic issue is not the conflict between evolution and religion but rather the conflict between evolution and science.

Seventeenth century scientist, Francis Bacon, one of the founders of modern science is quoted as saying "A little science takes a man away from God, a little more science brings him back."

Bill Nugent has written many articles on Christianity, philosophy and science. He has also written books that give Bible based teaching on sanctification and that caution against the error of legalism. His books are available at his website http://www.gracelawandsonship.com.

Science Project Idea To Grow Crystal

What a great way to make a science project to learn how to create crystals.

A quick and beautiful crystal formation can be processed with a few simple items. If you want to prepare this science experiment you will need to go shopping for the following items or look for some of the pieces in your home.

You will need the following:

• 1 tall glass jar with a wide mouth. If you have a canning glass jar this would work well.
• Boiling water
• Copper sulfate (you can get this at a store that has agriculture products as this chemical is used for herbicide and fungicide. It usually is sold in a 50 pound large bag but you can explain to the sales person you are using it for a school science project and they probably sell you a small amount such as pound)
• A pipe cleaner
• A string about 1 to 2 feet long.
• A pencil
• Rubber gloves

Steps to create your ultimate crystal:

1. Put your gloves on and take the pipe cleaner and form a circle and twist the ends together forming a circle.
2. Take the string and attach the end of the string to the circle of the pipe cleaner.
3. Squeeze the pipe cleaner slightly and twist a few times to create a different shape.
4. Set your glass jar on the counter and place some newspaper underneath to avoid spills.
5. Spoon a heaping tablespoon of copper sulfate into the jar.
6. Pour about cup boiling water into the jar and stir well with a spoon.
7. Add another heaping tablespoon of the chemical and another cup boil water. Do this until the jar is at least 2/3 full or almost full.
8. After the water is all in you may add 1 more spoonful of copper sulfate and stir until dissolved.
9. Tie the other end of the string to the pencil with the pipe cleaner tied to the opposing end. Make sure it is short enough so that the pipe cleaner can hang suspended in the center of the jar of water and the pencil will sit on top of the jar.
10. Lower the pipe cleaner into the hot water and lay the pencil horizontal on top of the glass jar.
11. Leave the jar alone for 24 hours.

In one day get the jar and remove the pencil from the water. You should see a beautiful dark blue crystal formed on the pipe cleaner. Depending on the amount of copper sulfate in the liquid will depend on the amount of crystal formed. Of course, a large amount means a large crystal and a small amount should be smaller crystals.

You can discard the liquid in a safe place. You may want a parent to dispose of it. Do not pour it down the sink.

Get more science project ideas and easy science projects at http://scienceprojects.fetching.us

Lesa Bolt is a contributor to science projects.