1.
Metamorphic rock
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Metamorphic rocks arise from the transformation of existing rock types, in a process called metamorphism, which means change in form. The original rock is subjected to heat and pressure, causing profound physical and/or chemical change, the protolith may be a sedimentary, an igneous, or even an existing type of metamorphic rock. Metamorphic rocks make up a part of the Earths crust. They are classified by texture and by chemical and mineral assemblage and they may be formed simply by being deep beneath the Earths surface, subjected to high temperatures and the great pressure of the rock layers above it. They can form from tectonic processes such as continental collisions, which cause horizontal pressure and they are also formed when rock is heated up by the intrusion of hot molten rock called magma from the Earths interior. The study of rocks provides information about the temperatures and pressures that occur at great depths within the Earths crust. Some examples of rocks are gneiss, slate, marble, schist. Metamorphic minerals are those that only at the high temperatures and pressures associated with the process of metamorphism. These minerals, known as index minerals, include sillimanite, kyanite, staurolite, andalusite, and some garnet. Other minerals, such as olivines, pyroxenes, amphiboles, micas, feldspars, and quartz, may be found in metamorphic rocks and these minerals formed during the crystallization of igneous rocks. They are stable at temperatures and pressures and may remain chemically unchanged during the metamorphic process. However, all minerals are only within certain limits. The change in the size of the rock during the process of metamorphism is called recrystallization. Both high temperatures and pressures contribute to recrystallization, high temperatures allow the atoms and ions in solid crystals to migrate, thus reorganizing the crystals, while high pressures cause solution of the crystals within the rock at their point of contact. The layering within metamorphic rocks is called foliation, and it occurs when a rock is being shortened along one axis during recrystallization. This causes the platy or elongated crystals of minerals, such as mica and chlorite and this results in a banded, or foliated rock, with the bands showing the colors of the minerals that formed them. Textures are separated into foliated and non-foliated categories, foliated rock is a product of differential stress that deforms the rock in one plane, sometimes creating a plane of cleavage. For example, slate is a metamorphic rock, originating from shale
2.
Feldspar
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Feldspars are a group of rock-forming tectosilicate minerals that make up about 40% of the Earths continental crust. Feldspars crystallize from magma as veins in both intrusive and extrusive rocks and are also present in many types of metamorphic rock. Rock formed almost entirely of plagioclase feldspar is known as anorthosite. Feldspars are also found in types of sedimentary rocks. The name feldspar derives from the German Feldspat, a compound of the words Feld, field, and Spat, the change from Spat to -spar was influenced by the English word spar, a synonym for mineral. Feldspathic refers to materials that contain feldspar, the alternate spelling, felspar, has largely fallen out of use. This group of minerals consists of tectosilicates, solid solutions between albite and anorthite are called plagioclase, or more properly plagioclase feldspar. Only limited solid solution occurs between K-feldspar and anorthite, and in the two solid solutions, immiscibility occurs at temperatures common in the crust of the earth. Albite is considered both a plagioclase and alkali feldspar, the alkali feldspars are as follows, orthoclase —KAlSi3O8 sanidine —AlSi3O8 microcline —KAlSi3O8 anorthoclase —AlSi3O8 Sanidine is stable at the highest temperatures, and microcline at the lowest. Perthite is a texture in alkali feldspar, due to exsolution of contrasting alkali feldspar compositions during cooling of an intermediate composition. The perthitic textures in the alkali feldspars of many granites can be seen with the naked eye, microperthitic textures in crystals are visible using a light microscope, whereas cryptoperthitic textures can be seen only with an electron microscope. Barium feldspars are also considered alkali feldspars, barium feldspars form as the result of the substitution of barium for potassium in the mineral structure. The barium feldspars are monoclinic and include the following, celsian—BaAl2Si2O8 hyalophane—4O8 The plagioclase feldspars are triclinic, the immiscibility gaps in the plagioclase solid solutions are complex compared to the gap in the alkali feldspars. The play of colours visible in some feldspar of labradorite composition is due to very fine-grained exsolution lamellae, chemical weathering of feldspars results in the formation of clay minerals. About 20 million tonnes of feldspar were produced in 2010, mostly by three countries, Italy, Turkey, and China, Feldspar is a common raw material used in glassmaking, ceramics, and to some extent as a filler and extender in paint, plastics, and rubber. In glassmaking, alumina from feldspar improves product hardness, durability, in ceramics, the alkalis in feldspar act as a flux, lowering the melting temperature of a mixture. Fluxes melt at a stage in the firing process, forming a glassy matrix that bonds the other components of the system together. In the US, about 66% of feldspar is consumed in glassmaking, including glass containers, ceramics and other uses, such as fillers, accounted for the remainder
3.
Mineral
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A mineral is a naturally occurring chemical compound, usually of crystalline form and abiogenic in origin. A mineral has one specific chemical composition, whereas a rock can be an aggregate of different minerals or mineraloids, the study of minerals is called mineralogy. There are over 5,300 known mineral species, over 5,070 of these have been approved by the International Mineralogical Association, the silicate minerals compose over 90% of the Earths crust. The diversity and abundance of species is controlled by the Earths chemistry. Silicon and oxygen constitute approximately 75% of the Earths crust, which translates directly into the predominance of silicate minerals, minerals are distinguished by various chemical and physical properties. Differences in chemical composition and crystal structure distinguish the various species, changes in the temperature, pressure, or bulk composition of a rock mass cause changes in its minerals. Minerals can be described by their various properties, which are related to their chemical structure. Common distinguishing characteristics include crystal structure and habit, hardness, lustre, diaphaneity, colour, streak, tenacity, cleavage, fracture, parting, more specific tests for describing minerals include magnetism, taste or smell, radioactivity and reaction to acid. Minerals are classified by key chemical constituents, the two dominant systems are the Dana classification and the Strunz classification, the silicate class of minerals is subdivided into six subclasses by the degree of polymerization in the chemical structure. All silicate minerals have a unit of a 4− silica tetrahedron—that is, a silicon cation coordinated by four oxygen anions. These tetrahedra can be polymerized to give the subclasses, orthosilicates, disilicates, cyclosilicates, inosilicates, phyllosilicates, other important mineral groups include the native elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, and phosphates. The first criterion means that a mineral has to form by a natural process, stability at room temperature, in the simplest sense, is synonymous to the mineral being solid. More specifically, a compound has to be stable or metastable at 25 °C, modern advances have included extensive study of liquid crystals, which also extensively involve mineralogy. Minerals are chemical compounds, and as such they can be described by fixed or a variable formula, many mineral groups and species are composed of a solid solution, pure substances are not usually found because of contamination or chemical substitution. Finally, the requirement of an ordered atomic arrangement is usually synonymous with crystallinity, however, crystals are also periodic, an ordered atomic arrangement gives rise to a variety of macroscopic physical properties, such as crystal form, hardness, and cleavage. There have been recent proposals to amend the definition to consider biogenic or amorphous substances as minerals. The formal definition of an approved by the IMA in 1995, A mineral is an element or chemical compound that is normally crystalline. However, if geological processes were involved in the genesis of the compound, Mineral classification schemes and their definitions are evolving to match recent advances in mineral science
4.
Mica
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The mica group of sheet silicate minerals includes several closely related materials having nearly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic, with a tendency towards pseudohexagonal crystals, and are similar in chemical composition, the nearly perfect cleavage, which is the most prominent characteristic of mica, is explained by the hexagonal sheet-like arrangement of its atoms. The word mica is derived from the Latin word mica, meaning a crumb, and probably influenced by micare, to glitter. Chemically, micas can be given the general formula X2Y4–6Z8O204 in which X is K, Na, or Ca or less commonly Ba, Rb, or Cs, Y is Al, Mg, or Fe or less commonly Mn, Cr, Ti, Li, etc. Z is chiefly Si or Al, but also may include Fe3+ or Ti, structurally, micas can be classed as dioctahedral and trioctahedral. If the X ion is K or Na, the mica is a common mica, whereas if the X ion is Ca, mica is widely distributed and occurs in igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary regimes. Large crystals of mica used for various applications are typically mined from granitic pegmatites, until the 19th century, large crystals of mica were quite rare and expensive as a result of the limited supply in Europe. However, their price dramatically dropped when large reserves were found and mined in Africa, the largest documented single crystal of mica was found in Lacey Mine, Ontario, Canada, it measured 10 ×4.3 ×4.3 m and weighed about 330 tonnes. Similar-sized crystals were found in Karelia, Russia. The British Geological Survey reported that as of 2005, Koderma district in Jharkhand state in India had the largest deposits of mica in the world. China was the top producer of mica with almost a third of the share, closely followed by the US, South Korea. Large deposits of mica were mined in New England from the 19th century to the 1970s. Large mines existed in Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Maine, scrap and flake mica is produced all over the world. In 2010, the producers were Russia, Finland, United States, South Korea, France. The total production was 350,000 t, although no data were available for China. Most sheet mica was produced in India and Russia, flake mica comes from several sources, the metamorphic rock called schist as a byproduct of processing feldspar and kaolin resources, from placer deposits, and from pegmatites. Sheet mica is considerably less abundant than flake and scrap mica, the most important sources of sheet mica are pegmatite deposits. Sheet mica prices vary with grade and can range from less than $1 per kilogram for low-quality mica to more than $2,000 per kilogram for the highest quality, the mica group represents 37 phyllosilicate minerals that have a layered or platy texture
5.
Chlorite group
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The chlorites are a group of phyllosilicate minerals. Chlorites can be described by the following four endmembers based on their chemistry via substitution of the four elements in the silicate lattice, Mg, Fe, Ni. Clinochlore, O108 Chamosite, O108 Nimite, O108 Pennantite, 64O108 In addition, zinc, lithium, the great range in composition results in considerable variation in physical, optical, and X-ray properties. Similarly, the range of chemical composition allows chlorite group minerals to exist over a range of temperature and pressure conditions. For this reason chlorite minerals are ubiquitous minerals within low and medium temperature metamorphic rocks, some rocks, hydrothermal rocks. The name chlorite is from the Greek chloros, meaning green, the typical general formula is, 34O102·36. This formula emphasizes the structure of the group, chlorites have a 2,1 sandwich structure, this is often referred to as a talc layer. Unlike other 2,1 clay minerals, a chlorites interlayer space is composed of 6 and this 6 unit is more commonly referred to as the brucite-like layer, due to its closer resemblance to the mineral brucite. Therefore, chlorites structure appears as follows, -t-o-t-brucite-t-o-t-brucite, thats why they are also called 2,1,1 minerals. An older classification divided the chlorites into two subgroups, the orthochlorites and leptochlorites, the terms are seldom used and the ortho prefix is somewhat misleading as the chlorite crystal system is monoclinic and not orthorhombic. Chlorite is commonly found in rocks as an alteration product of mafic minerals such as pyroxene, amphibole. Chlorite is a common mineral associated with ore deposits and commonly occurs with epidote, sericite, adularia. Chlorite is also a metamorphic mineral, usually indicative of low-grade metamorphism. It is the species of the zeolite facies and of lower greenschist facies. It occurs in the quartz, albite, sericite, chlorite, within ultramafic rocks, metamorphism can also produce predominantly clinochlore chlorite in association with talc. Chlorite occurs naturally in a variety of locations and forms, for example, chlorite is found naturally in certain parts of Wales in mineral schists. Chlorite is found in large boulders scattered on the surface on Ring Mountain in Marin County. Clinoclore, pennantite, and chamosite are the most common varieties, several other sub-varieties have been described
6.
Talc
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Talc is a clay mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate with the chemical formula H2Mg34 or Mg3Si4O102. In loose form, it, along with starch, was one of the most widely used substances known as baby powder It occurs as foliated to fibrous masses. It has a perfect cleavage, and the folia are not elastic. Mohs scale of hardness, based on scratch hardness comparison. As such, talc can easily be scratched by a fingernail, talc has a specific gravity of 2. 5–2.8, a clear or dusty luster, and is translucent to opaque. Talc is not soluble in water, but is soluble in dilute mineral acids. Its color ranges from white to grey or green and it has a greasy feel. Soapstone is a rock composed predominantly of talc. The word talc derives from Medieval Latin talcus, which in turn originates from Arabic, طلق ṭalq which in turn was derived from Persian, in the ancient times, the word was used for various related minerals, including talc, mica, and selenite. Talc is a mineral that results from the metamorphism of magnesian minerals such as serpentine, pyroxene, amphibole. This is known as talc carbonation or steatization and produces a suite of known as talc carbonates. This is typically associated with high-pressure, low-temperature minerals such as phengite, garnet, such rocks are typically white, friable, and fibrous, and are known as whiteschist. Talc is a trioctahedral layered mineral, its structure is similar to pyrophyllite, talc is a common metamorphic mineral in metamorphic belts that contain ultramafic rocks, such as soapstone, and within whiteschist and blueschist metamorphic terranes. Talc carbonate ultramafics are typical of areas of the Archaean cratons. Talc-carbonate ultramafics are also known from the Lachlan Fold Belt, eastern Australia, from Brazil, the Guiana Shield, and from the belts of Turkey, Oman. Notable economic talc occurrences include the Mount Seabrook talc mine, Western Australia, the France-based Luzenac Group is the worlds largest supplier of mined talc. Its largest talc mine at Trimouns near Luzenac in southern France produces 400,000 tonnes of talc per year, talc is used in many industries, including paper making, plastic, paint and coatings, rubber, food, electric cable, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and ceramics. A coarse grayish-green high-talc rock is soapstone or steatite, used for stoves, sinks, electrical switchboards, crayons, soap and it is often used for surfaces of laboratory table tops and electrical switchboards because of its resistance to heat, electricity and acids
7.
Hornblende
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Hornblende is a complex inosilicate series of minerals. It is not a mineral in its own right, but the name is used as a general or field term. Hornblende is a mixture of three molecules, a calcium-iron-magnesium silicate, an aluminium-iron-magnesium silicate, and an iron-magnesium silicate. The general formula can be given as 2–358O222, some metals vary in their occurrence and magnitude, Manganese and titanium are often present. Sodium and potassium are present and fluorine often substitutes for the hydroxyl in the crystalline structure. Hornblende has a hardness of 5–6, a gravity of 2. 9–3.4 and is typically an opaque green. Its cleavage angles are at 56 and 124 degrees and it is most often confused with various pyroxene minerals and biotite mica, which are black and can be found in granite and in charnockite. Hornblende is a constituent of many igneous and metamorphic rocks such as granite, syenite, diorite, gabbro, basalt, andesite, gneiss. It is the mineral of amphibolites. Very dark brown to black hornblendes that contain titanium are ordinarily called basaltic hornblende, from the fact that they are usually a constituent of basalt, hornblende alters easily to chlorite and epidote. A rare variety of hornblende contains less than 5% of iron oxide, is gray to white in color, and named edenite, from its locality in Edenville, Orange County, New York. List of minerals Hurlbut, Cornelius S. Klein, Cornelis,1985, Manual of Mineralogy, 20th ed. John Wiley and Sons, New York, p 416-7, ISBN 0-471-80580-7 Scandinavian mineral gallery retrieved 06/21/05
8.
Graphite
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Graphite, archaically referred to as plumbago, is a crystalline form of carbon, a semimetal, a native element mineral, and one of the allotropes of carbon. Graphite is the most stable form of carbon under standard conditions, therefore, it is used in thermochemistry as the standard state for defining the heat of formation of carbon compounds. Highly ordered pyrolytic graphite or more correctly highly oriented pyrolytic graphite refers to graphite with a spread between the graphite sheets of less than 1°. The name graphite fiber is sometimes used to refer to carbon fibers or carbon fiber-reinforced polymer. Graphite occurs in rocks as a result of the reduction of sedimentary carbon compounds during metamorphism. It also occurs in rocks and in meteorites. Minerals associated with graphite include quartz, calcite, micas and tourmaline, in meteorites it occurs with troilite and silicate minerals. Small graphitic crystals in meteoritic iron are called cliftonite, Graphite is not mined in the United States, but U. S. production of synthetic graphite in 2010 was 134 kt valued at $1.07 billion. Graphite has a layered, planar structure, the individual layers are called graphene. In each layer, the atoms are arranged in a honeycomb lattice with separation of 0.142 nm. Atoms in the plane are bonded covalently, with three of the four potential bonding sites satisfied. The fourth electron is free to migrate in the plane, making graphite electrically conductive, however, it does not conduct in a direction at right angles to the plane. Bonding between layers is via weak van der Waals bonds, which allows layers of graphite to be easily separated, the two known forms of graphite, alpha and beta, have very similar physical properties, except for that the graphene layers stack slightly differently. The alpha graphite may be flat or buckled. The alpha form can be converted to the form through mechanical treatment. The acoustic and thermal properties of graphite are highly anisotropic, since phonons propagate quickly along the tightly-bound planes, graphites high thermal stability and electrical and thermal conductivity facilitate its widespread use as electrodes and refractories in high temperature material processing applications. However, in oxygen containing atmospheres graphite readily oxidizes to form CO2 at temperatures of 700 °C, Graphite is an electric conductor, consequently, useful in such applications as arc lamp electrodes. It can conduct electricity due to the vast electron delocalization within the carbon layers and these valence electrons are free to move, so are able to conduct electricity
9.
Quartz
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Quartz is the second most abundant mineral in Earths continental crust, behind feldspar. There are many different varieties of quartz, several of which are semi-precious gemstones, since antiquity, varieties of quartz have been the most commonly used minerals in the making of jewelry and hardstone carvings, especially in Eurasia. The word quartz is derived from the German word Quarz and its Middle High German ancestor twarc, the Ancient Greeks referred to quartz as κρύσταλλος derived from the Ancient Greek κρύος meaning icy cold, because some philosophers apparently believed the mineral to be a form of supercooled ice. Today, the rock crystal is sometimes used as an alternative name for the purest form of quartz. Quartz belongs to the crystal system. The ideal crystal shape is a six-sided prism terminating with six-sided pyramids at each end, well-formed crystals typically form in a bed that has unconstrained growth into a void, usually the crystals are attached at the other end to a matrix and only one termination pyramid is present. However, doubly terminated crystals do occur where they develop freely without attachment, a quartz geode is such a situation where the void is approximately spherical in shape, lined with a bed of crystals pointing inward. α-quartz crystallizes in the crystal system, space group P3121 and P3221 respectively. β-quartz belongs to the system, space group P6222 and P6422. These space groups are truly chiral, both α-quartz and β-quartz are examples of chiral crystal structures composed of achiral building blocks. The transformation between α- and β-quartz only involves a comparatively minor rotation of the tetrahedra with respect to one another, although many of the varietal names historically arose from the color of the mineral, current scientific naming schemes refer primarily to the microstructure of the mineral. Color is an identifier for the cryptocrystalline minerals, although it is a primary identifier for the macrocrystalline varieties. Pure quartz, traditionally called rock crystal or clear quartz, is colorless and transparent or translucent, common colored varieties include citrine, rose quartz, amethyst, smoky quartz, milky quartz, and others. The most important distinction between types of quartz is that of macrocrystalline and the microcrystalline or cryptocrystalline varieties, the cryptocrystalline varieties are either translucent or mostly opaque, while the transparent varieties tend to be macrocrystalline. Chalcedony is a form of silica consisting of fine intergrowths of both quartz, and its monoclinic polymorph moganite. Other opaque gemstone varieties of quartz, or mixed rocks including quartz, often including contrasting bands or patterns of color, are agate, carnelian or sard, onyx, heliotrope, amethyst is a form of quartz that ranges from a bright to dark or dull purple color. The worlds largest deposits of amethysts can be found in Brazil, Mexico, Uruguay, Russia, France, Namibia, sometimes amethyst and citrine are found growing in the same crystal. It is then referred to as ametrine, an amethyst is formed when there is iron in the area where it was formed
10.
Garnet
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Garnets are a group of silicate minerals that have been used since the Bronze Age as gemstones and abrasives. All species of garnets possess similar physical properties and crystal forms, the different species are pyrope, almandine, spessartine, grossular, uvarovite and andradite. The garnets make up two solid solution series, pyrope-almandine-spessartine and uvarovite-grossular-andradite, the word garnet comes from the 14th‑century Middle English word gernet, meaning dark red. It is derived from the Latin granatus, from granum, Garnet species are found in many colors including red, orange, yellow, green, purple, brown, blue, black, pink, and colorless, with reddish shades most common. Garnet species light transmission properties can range from the gemstone-quality transparent specimens to the varieties used for industrial purposes as abrasives. The minerals luster is categorized as vitreous or resinous, garnets are nesosilicates having the general formula X3Y23. The X site is occupied by divalent cations 2+ and the Y site by trivalent cations 3+ in an octahedral/tetrahedral framework with 4− occupying the tetrahedra. Garnets are most often found in the crystal habit, but are also commonly found in the trapezohedron habit. They crystallize in the system, having three axes that are all of equal length and perpendicular to each other. Garnets do not show cleavage, so when they fracture under stress, because the chemical composition of garnet varies, the atomic bonds in some species are stronger than in others. As a result, this group shows a range of hardness on the Mohs scale of about 6.5 to 7.5. The harder species like almandine are often used for abrasive purposes, for gem identification purposes, a pick-up response to a strong neodymium magnet separates garnet from all other natural transparent gemstones commonly used in the jewelry trade. Almandine, Fe3Al23 Pyrope, Mg3Al23 Spessartine, Mn3Al23 Almandine, sometimes incorrectly called almandite, is the modern gem known as carbuncle, the term carbuncle is derived from the Latin meaning live coal or burning charcoal. The name Almandine is a corruption of Alabanda, a region in Asia Minor where these stones were cut in ancient times, chemically, almandine is an iron-aluminium garnet with the formula Fe3Al23, the deep red transparent stones are often called precious garnet and are used as gemstones. Almandine occurs in metamorphic rocks like mica schists, associated with such as staurolite, kyanite, andalusite. Almandine has nicknames of Oriental garnet, almandine ruby, and carbuncle, Pyrope is red in color and chemically an aluminium silicate with the formula Mg3Al23, though the magnesium can be replaced in part by calcium and ferrous iron. The color of pyrope varies from red to black. A variety of pyrope from Macon County, North Carolina is a shade and has been called rhodolite
11.
Phyllite
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Phyllite is a type of foliated metamorphic rock created from slate that is further metamorphosed so that very fine grained white mica achieves a preferred orientation. It is primarily composed of quartz, sericite mica, and chlorite, among foliated metamorphic rocks, it represents a gradation in the degree of metamorphism between slate and schist. The minute crystals of graphite, sericite, or chlorite, or the translucent fine-grained white mica, impart a silky, sometimes golden sheen to the surfaces of cleavage, the word comes from the Greek phyllon, meaning leaf. The protolith for phyllite is shale or pelite, or slate and its constituent platy minerals are larger than those in slate but are not visible with the naked eye. Phyllites are said to have a texture called phyllitic sheen, and are classified as having formed through low-grade metamorphic conditions through regional metamorphism metamorphic facies. Phyllites are usually black to gray or light gray in color. The foliation is commonly crinkled or wavy in appearance, phyllite is commonly found in the Dalradian metasediments of northwest Arran. In north Cornwall, there are Tredorn phyllites and Woolgarden phyllites
12.
Foliation (geology)
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Foliation in geology refers to repetitive layering in metamorphic rocks. Each layer may be as thin as a sheet of paper, the word comes from the Latin folium, meaning leaf, and refers to the sheet-like planar structure. It is caused by shearing forces, or differential pressure, the layers form parallel to the direction of the shear, or perpendicular to the direction of higher pressure. Nonfoliated metamorphic rocks are formed in the absence of significant differential pressure or sheer. Foliation is common in rocks affected by the regional metamorphic compression typical of areas of mountain belt formation, more technically, foliation is any penetrative planar fabric present in metamorphic rocks. Rocks exhibiting foliation include the sequence formed by the prograde metamorphism of mudrocks, slate, phyllite, schist. The slatey cleavage typical of slate is due to the orientation of microscopic phyllosilicate crystals. In gneiss the foliation is more typically represented by compositional banding due to segregation of mineral phases, foliated rock is also known as S-tectonite in sheared rock masses. Foliation is usually formed by the orientation of minerals within a rock. Usually this is a result of physical force, and its effect upon the growth of minerals. The planar fabric of a foliation typically forms at right angles to the principal strain direction. In sheared zones, however, planar fabric within a rock may not be perpendicular to the principal stress direction due to rotation, mass transport. Foliation may be formed by realignment of micas and clays via physical rotation of the minerals within the rock, often this foliation is associated with diagenetic metamorphism and low-grade burial metamorphism. Foliation may parallel original sedimentary bedding, but more often is oriented at angle to it. The growth of platy minerals, typically of the group, is usually a result of prograde metamorphic reactions during deformation. Often, retrograde metamorphism will not form a foliation because unroofing of a belt is not accompanied by significant compressive stress. Thermal metamorphism in the aureole of a granite is also unlikely to result in growth of mica in a foliation, alignment of tabular minerals in metamorphic rocks, igneous rocks and intrusive rocks may form a foliation. Typical examples of metamorphic rocks include porphyroblastic schists where large, oblate minerals form an alignment either due to growth or rotation in the groundmass, igneous rocks can become foliated by alignment of cumulate crystals during convection in large magma chambers, especially ultramafic intrusions, and typically plagioclase laths
13.
Biotite
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Biotite is a common phyllosilicate mineral within the mica group, with the approximate chemical formula K 3AlSi 3O102. Hausmann in 1847 in honor of the French physicist Jean-Baptiste Biot, iron, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, oxygen, and hydrogen form sheets that are weakly bound together by potassium ions. It is sometimes called iron mica because it is more iron-rich than phlogopite and it is also sometimes called black mica as opposed to white mica – both form in some rocks, and in some instances side-by-side. Like other mica minerals, biotite has a perfect basal cleavage, and consists of flexible sheets, or lamellae. It has a crystal system, with tabular to prismatic crystals with an obvious pinacoid termination. It has four faces and two pinacoid faces to form a pseudohexagonal crystal. Although not easily seen because of the cleavage and sheets, fracture is uneven and it appears greenish to brown or black, and even yellow when weathered. It can be transparent to opaque, has a vitreous to pearly luster, when biotite is found in large chunks, they are called “books” because it resembles a book with pages of many sheets. The color of biotite is usually black and the mineral has a hardness of 2. 5-3 on the Mohs scale of mineral hardness, biotite dissolves in both acid and alkaline aqueous solutions, with the highest dissolution rates at low pH. However, biotite dissolution is highly anisotropic with crystal edge surfaces reacting 45 to 132 times faster than basal surfaces, under cross-polarized light biotite can generally be identified by the gnarled birds eye extinction. Biotite is found in a variety of igneous and metamorphic rocks. For instance, biotite occurs in the lava of Mount Vesuvius, biotite in granite tends to be poorer in magnesium than the biotite found in its volcanic equivalent, rhyolite. Biotite is an essential phenocryst in some varieties of lamprophyre, biotite is occasionally found in large cleavable crystals, especially in pegmatite veins, as in New England, Virginia and North Carolina. Other notable occurrences include Bancroft and Sudbury, Ontario and it is an essential constituent of many metamorphic schists, and it forms in suitable compositions over a wide range of pressure and temperature. It has been estimated that biotite comprises up to 7% of the continental crust. The largest documented single crystals of biotite were approximately 7 m2 sheets found in Iveland, biotite is used extensively to constrain ages of rocks, by either potassium-argon dating or argon-argon dating. Because argon escapes readily from the crystal structure at high temperatures. Biotite is also useful in assessing temperature histories of metamorphic rocks, because the partitioning of iron and magnesium between biotite and garnet is sensitive to temperature
14.
Muscovite
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Muscovite is a hydrated phyllosilicate mineral of aluminium and potassium with formula KAl22, or 236. It has a perfect basal cleavage yielding remarkably thin laminae which are often highly elastic. Sheets of muscovite 5 m ×3 m have been found in Nellore, Muscovite has a Mohs hardness of 2–2.25 parallel to the face,4 perpendicular to the and a specific gravity of 2. 76–3. It can be colorless or tinted through grays, browns, greens, yellows, or violet or red and it is anisotropic and has high birefringence. The green, chromium-rich variety is called fuchsite, mariposite is also a type of muscovite. In pegmatites, it is found in immense sheets that are commercially valuable. Muscovite is in demand for the manufacture of fireproofing and insulating materials, the name muscovite comes from Muscovy-glass, a name given to the mineral in Elizabethan England due to its use in medieval Russia as a cheaper alternative to glass in windows. Media related to Muscovite at Wikimedia Commons
15.
Tourmaline
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Tourmaline is a crystalline boron silicate mineral compounded with elements such as aluminium, iron, magnesium, sodium, lithium, or potassium. Tourmaline is classified as a stone and the gemstone comes in a wide variety of colors. The name comes from the Tamil and Sinhalese word Turmali or Thoramalli, brightly colored Sri Lankan gem tourmalines were brought to Europe in great quantities by the Dutch East India Company to satisfy a demand for curiosities and gems. At the time it was not realised that schorl and tourmaline were the same mineral, tourmaline was sometimes called the Ceylonese Magnet because it could attract and then repel hot ashes due to its pyroelectric properties. Tourmalines were used by chemists in the 19th century to light by shining rays onto a cut. It may account for 95% or more of all tourmaline in nature, the early history of the mineral schorl shows that the name schorl was in use prior to 1400 because a village known today as Zschorlau was then named Schorl. This village had a tin mine where, in addition to cassiterite. The first description of schorl with the name schürl and its occurrence was written by Johannes Mathesius in 1562 under the title Sarepta oder Bergpostill, up to about 1600, additional names used in the German language were Schurel, Schörle, and Schurl. Beginning in the 18th century, the name Schörl was mainly used in the German-speaking area, in English, the names shorl and shirl were used in the 18th century. In the 19th century the names common schorl, schörl, schorl, dravite, also called brown tourmaline, is the sodium magnesium rich tourmaline endmember. Uvite, in comparison, is a calcium magnesium tourmaline, dravite forms multiple series, with other tourmaline members, including schorl and elbaite. Today this tourmaline locality at Dravograd, is a part of the Republic of Slovenia, tschermak gave this tourmaline the name dravite, for the Drava river area, which is the district along the Drava River in Austria and Slovenia. Dravite varieties include the green chromium dravite and the vanadium dravite. A lithium-tourmaline elbaite was one of three pegmatitic minerals from Utö, Sweden, in which the new alkali element lithium was determined in 1818 by Johan August Arfwedson for the first time. Elba Island, Italy, was one of the first localities where colored, in 1850 Karl Friedrich August Rammelsberg described fluorine in tourmaline for the first time. In 1870 he proved that all varieties of tourmaline contain chemically bound water, in 1889 Scharitzer proposed the substitution of by F in red Li-tourmaline from Sušice, Czech Republic. In 1914 Vladimir Vernadsky proposed the name Elbait for lithium-, sodium-, most likely the type material for elbaite was found at Fonte del Prete, San Piero in Campo, Campo nellElba, Elba Island, Province of Livorno, Tuscany, Italy. In 1933 Winchell published a formula for elbaite, H8Na2Li3Al3B6Al12Si12O62
16.
Glaucophane
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Glaucophane is the name of a mineral and a mineral group belonging to the sodic amphibole supergroup of the double chain inosilicates, with the chemical formula ☐Na2Si8O222. Glaucophane crystallizes in the monoclinic system, glaucophane is named for its typical blue color. In Greek, glaucophane means blue appearing, as the major mineral component, it is glaucophanes color that gives the blueschist metamorphic rock type its name. The blue color is very diagnostic for this species, glaucophane, along with the closely related mineral riebeckite, to which it forms a series with, and their intermediate crossite, are the only well known amphiboles that are commonly blue. Glaucophane forms a solid solution series with ferroglaucophane, Na23Al2Si8O222, glaucophane is the magnesium-rich endmember and ferroglaucophane is the iron-rich endmember. Ferroglaucophane is similar to glaucophane but is denser and hence increased specific gravity. The two endmembers are indistinguishable in hand specimens and are strongly pleochroic, glaucophanes hardness is 5 -6 and its specific gravity is approximately 3 -3.2. The blueschist metamorphic facies gets its name from abundant blue minerals glaucophane and this material has undergone intense pressure and moderate heat as it was subducted downward toward the mantle. Glaucophane is also found in eclogites that have undergone retrograde metamorphism, there is also a rare amphibole called holmquistite, chemical formula Li2Mg3Al2Si8O222, which occurs only in lithium-rich continental rocks. For many years, holmquistite was mistaken for glaucophane, as the two look identical in thin section
17.
Greek language
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Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages, native to Greece and other parts of the Eastern Mediterranean. It has the longest documented history of any living language, spanning 34 centuries of written records and its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the major part of its history, other systems, such as Linear B and the Cypriot syllabary, were used previously. The alphabet arose from the Phoenician script and was in turn the basis of the Latin, Cyrillic, Armenian, Coptic, Gothic and many other writing systems. Together with the Latin texts and traditions of the Roman world, during antiquity, Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and many places beyond. It would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire, the language is spoken by at least 13.2 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, Italy, Albania, Turkey, and the Greek diaspora. Greek roots are used to coin new words for other languages, Greek. Greek has been spoken in the Balkan peninsula since around the 3rd millennium BC, the earliest written evidence is a Linear B clay tablet found in Messenia that dates to between 1450 and 1350 BC, making Greek the worlds oldest recorded living language. Among the Indo-European languages, its date of earliest written attestation is matched only by the now extinct Anatolian languages, the Greek language is conventionally divided into the following periods, Proto-Greek, the unrecorded but assumed last ancestor of all known varieties of Greek. The unity of Proto-Greek would have ended as Hellenic migrants entered the Greek peninsula sometime in the Neolithic era or the Bronze Age, Mycenaean Greek, the language of the Mycenaean civilisation. It is recorded in the Linear B script on tablets dating from the 15th century BC onwards, Ancient Greek, in its various dialects, the language of the Archaic and Classical periods of the ancient Greek civilisation. It was widely known throughout the Roman Empire, after the Roman conquest of Greece, an unofficial bilingualism of Greek and Latin was established in the city of Rome and Koine Greek became a first or second language in the Roman Empire. The origin of Christianity can also be traced through Koine Greek, Medieval Greek, also known as Byzantine Greek, the continuation of Koine Greek in Byzantine Greece, up to the demise of the Byzantine Empire in the 15th century. Much of the written Greek that was used as the language of the Byzantine Empire was an eclectic middle-ground variety based on the tradition of written Koine. Modern Greek, Stemming from Medieval Greek, Modern Greek usages can be traced in the Byzantine period and it is the language used by the modern Greeks, and, apart from Standard Modern Greek, there are several dialects of it. In the modern era, the Greek language entered a state of diglossia, the historical unity and continuing identity between the various stages of the Greek language is often emphasised. Greek speakers today still tend to regard literary works of ancient Greek as part of their own rather than a foreign language and it is also often stated that the historical changes have been relatively slight compared with some other languages. According to one estimation, Homeric Greek is probably closer to demotic than 12-century Middle English is to modern spoken English, Greek is spoken by about 13 million people, mainly in Greece, Albania and Cyprus, but also worldwide by the large Greek diaspora. Greek is the language of Greece, where it is spoken by almost the entire population
18.
Clay
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Clay is a fine-grained natural rock or soil material that combines one or more clay minerals with traces of metal oxides and organic matter. Geologic clay deposits are composed of phyllosilicate minerals containing variable amounts of water trapped in the mineral structure. Clays are plastic due to water content and become hard, brittle. Depending on the content in which it is found, clay can appear in various colours from white to dull grey or brown to deep orange-red. Although many naturally occurring deposits include both silts and clay, clays are distinguished from other fine-grained soils by differences in size, silts, which are fine-grained soils that do not include clay minerals, tend to have larger particle sizes than clays. There is, however, some overlap in size and other physical properties. The distinction between silt and clay varies by discipline, geologists and soil scientists usually consider the separation to occur at a particle size of 2 µm, sedimentologists often use 4–5 μm, and colloid chemists use 1 μm. Geotechnical engineers distinguish between silts and clays based on the plasticity properties of the soil, as measured by the soils Atterberg limits, ISO14688 grades clay particles as being smaller than 2 μm and silt particles as being larger. These solvents, usually acidic, migrate through the rock after leaching through upper weathered layers. In addition to the process, some clay minerals are formed through hydrothermal activity. There are two types of deposits, primary and secondary. Primary clays form as residual deposits in soil and remain at the site of formation, secondary clays are clays that have been transported from their original location by water erosion and deposited in a new sedimentary deposit. Clay deposits are associated with very low energy depositional environments such as large lakes. Depending on the source, there are three or four main groups of clays, kaolinite, montmorillonite-smectite, illite, and chlorite. Chlorites are not always considered to be a clay, sometimes being classified as a group within the phyllosilicates. There are approximately 30 different types of clays in these categories. Varve is clay with visible annual layers, which are formed by deposition of those layers and are marked by differences in erosion. This type of deposit is common in glacial lakes
19.
Shale
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Shale is a fine-grained, clastic sedimentary rock composed of mud that is a mix of flakes of clay minerals and tiny fragments of other minerals, especially quartz and calcite. The ratio of clay to other minerals is variable, shale is characterized by breaks along thin laminae or parallel layering or bedding less than one centimeter in thickness, called fissility. Mudstones, on the hand, are similar in composition. Before the mid 19th century, the slate, shale. In the context of underground mining, shale was frequently referred to as slate well into the 20th century. Non-fissile rocks of similar composition but made of smaller than 0.06 mm are described as mudstones or claystone. Rocks with similar sizes but with less clay and therefore grittier are siltstones. Shale is the most common sedimentary rock, shales are typically composed of variable amounts of clay minerals and quartz grains and the typical color is gray. Addition of variable amounts of minor constituents alters the color of the rock, black shale results from the presence of greater than one percent carbonaceous material and indicates a reducing environment. Black shale can also be referred to as black metal, red, brown and green colors are indicative of ferric oxide, iron hydroxide, or micaceous minerals. Clays are the constituent of shales and other mudrocks. The clay minerals represented are largely kaolinite, montmorillonite and illite, clay minerals of Late Tertiary mudstones are expandable smectites whereas in older rocks especially in mid- to early Paleozoic shales illites predominate. The transformation of smectite to illite produces silica, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron and these released elements form authigenic quartz, chert, calcite, dolomite, ankerite, hematite and albite, all trace to minor minerals found in shales and other mudrocks. Shales and mudrocks contain roughly 95 percent of the matter in all sedimentary rocks. However, this amounts to less than one percent by mass in an average shale, black shales, which form in anoxic conditions, contain reduced free carbon along with ferrous iron and sulfur. Pyrite and amorphous iron sulfide along with carbon produce the black coloration, the process in the rock cycle which forms shale is called compaction. The fine particles that compose shale can remain suspended in long after the larger particles of sand have deposited. Shales are typically deposited in very slow moving water and are found in lakes and lagoonal deposits, in river deltas, on floodplains
20.
Slate
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Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock, foliation may not correspond to the original sedimentary layering, but instead is in planes perpendicular to the direction of metamorphic compression. The foliation in slate is called slaty cleavage and it is caused by strong compression causing fine grained clay flakes to regrow in planes perpendicular to the compression. Slate is frequently grey in color, especially when seen, en masse, Slate is not to be confused with shale, from which it may be formed, or schist. The word slate is used for certain types of object made from slate rock. It may mean a single roofing tile made of slate, or a writing slate and this was traditionally a small smooth piece of the rock, often framed in wood, used with chalk as a notepad or noticeboard, and especially for recording charges in pubs and inns. The phrases clean slate and blank slate come from this usage, before the mid-19th century, the terms slate, shale and schist were not sharply distinguished. In the context of underground mining in the United States. For example, roof slate referred to shale above a coal seam, occasionally, as in the purple slates of North Wales, ferrous reduction spheres form around iron nuclei, leaving a light green spotted texture. These spheres are sometimes deformed by a subsequent applied stress field to ovoids, Slate can be made into roofing slates, a type of roof shingle, or more specifically a type of roof tile, which are installed by a slater. Slate has two lines of breakability – cleavage and grain – which make it possible to split the stone into thin sheets, when broken, slate retains a natural appearance while remaining relatively flat and easy to stack. Slate is particularly suitable as a material as it has an extremely low water absorption index of less than 0. 4%. In fact, this natural slate, which requires only minimal processing, has the lowest embodied energy of all roofing materials, natural slate is used by building professionals as a result of its beauty and durability. Slate is incredibly durable and can last several hundred years, often little or no maintenance. Its low water makes it very resistant to frost damage and breakage due to freezing. Natural slate is also fire resistant and energy efficient, Slate roof tiles are usually fixed either with nails, or with hooks as is common with Spanish slate. In the UK, fixing is typically with double nails onto timber battens or nailed directly onto timber sarking boards, nails were traditionally of copper, although there are modern alloy and stainless steel alternatives. Both these methods, if used properly, provide a long-lasting weathertight roof with a lifespan of around 80–100 years, Slate roofs are still used today
21.
Igneous rock
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Igneous rock, or magmatic rock, is one of the three main rock types, the others being sedimentary and metamorphic. Igneous rock is formed through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava, the magma can be derived from partial melts of existing rocks in either a planets mantle or crust. Typically, the melting is caused by one or more of three processes, an increase in temperature, a decrease in pressure, or a change in composition, solidification into rock occurs either below the surface as intrusive rocks or on the surface as extrusive rocks. Igneous rock may form with crystallization to form granular, crystalline rocks, Igneous and metamorphic rocks make up 90–95% of the top 16 km of the Earths crust by volume. Igneous rocks form about 15% of the Earths current land surface, most of the Earths oceanic crust is made of igneous rock. In terms of modes of occurrence, igneous rocks can be either intrusive or extrusive, the mineral grains in such rocks can generally be identified with the naked eye. Intrusive rocks can also be classified according to the shape and size of the intrusive body, typical intrusive formations are batholiths, stocks, laccoliths, sills and dikes. When the magma solidifies within the earths crust, it cools slowly forming coarse textured rocks, such as granite, gabbro, the central cores of major mountain ranges consist of intrusive igneous rocks, usually granite. When exposed by erosion, these cores may occupy huge areas of the Earths surface, intrusive igneous rocks that form at depth within the crust are termed plutonic rocks and are usually coarse-grained. Intrusive igneous rocks that form near the surface are termed subvolcanic or hypabyssal rocks, hypabyssal rocks are less common than plutonic or volcanic rocks and often form dikes, sills, laccoliths, lopoliths, or phacoliths. Extrusive igneous rocks, also known as rocks, are formed at the crusts surface as a result of the partial melting of rocks within the mantle. Extrusive igneous rocks cool and solidify quicker than intrusive igneous rocks and they are formed by the cooling of molten magma on the earths surface. The magma, which is brought to the surface through fissures or volcanic eruptions, hence such rocks are smooth, crystalline and fine-grained. Basalt is an extrusive igneous rock and forms lava flows, lava sheets. Some kinds of basalt solidify to form long polygonal columns, the Giants Causeway in Antrim, Northern Ireland is an example. The molten rock, with or without suspended crystals and gas bubbles, is called magma and it rises because it is less dense than the rock from which it was created. When magma reaches the surface from beneath water or air, it is called lava, eruptions of volcanoes into air are termed subaerial, whereas those occurring underneath the ocean are termed submarine. Black smokers and mid-ocean ridge basalt are examples of volcanic activity
22.
Basalt
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Basalt is a common extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of basaltic lava exposed at or very near the surface of a planet or moon. Flood basalt describes the formation in a series of basalt flows. By definition, basalt is an igneous rock with generally 45-55% silica and less than 10% feldspathoid by volume. Basalt commonly features a very fine-grained or glassy matrix interspersed with visible mineral grains, the average density is 3.0 gm/cm3. Basalt is defined by its content and texture, and physical descriptions without mineralogical context may be unreliable in some circumstances. Basalt is usually grey to black in colour, but rapidly weathers to brown or rust-red due to oxidation of its mafic minerals into hematite, although usually characterized as dark, basaltic rocks exhibit a wide range of shading due to regional geochemical processes. Due to weathering or high concentrations of plagioclase, some basalts can be quite light-coloured and these phenocrysts usually are of olivine or a calcium-rich plagioclase, which have the highest melting temperatures of the typical minerals that can crystallize from the melt. Basalt with a texture is called vesicular basalt, when the bulk of the rock is mostly solid. Gabbro is often marketed commercially as black granite and these ultramafic volcanic rocks, with silica contents below 45% are usually classified as komatiites. Agricola applied basalt to the black rock of the Schloßberg at Stolpen. Tholeiitic basalt is relatively rich in silica and poor in sodium, included in this category are most basalts of the ocean floor, most large oceanic islands, and continental flood basalts such as the Columbia River Plateau. Basalt rocks are in some cases classified after their content in High-Ti and Low-Ti varieties. High-Ti and Low-Ti basalts have been distinguished in the Paraná and Etendeka traps and it has greater than 17% alumina and is intermediate in composition between tholeiite and alkali basalt, the relatively alumina-rich composition is based on rocks without phenocrysts of plagioclase. Alkali basalt is relatively poor in silica and rich in sodium and it is silica-undersaturated and may contain feldspathoids, alkali feldspar and phlogopite. Boninite is a form of basalt that is erupted generally in back-arc basins. Ocean island basalt Lunar basalt On Earth, most basalt magmas have formed by melting of the mantle. Basalt commonly erupts on Io, the third largest moon of Jupiter, and has formed on the Moon, Mars, Venus. The crustal portions of oceanic tectonic plates are composed predominantly of basalt, produced from upwelling mantle below, the mineralogy of basalt is characterized by a preponderance of calcic plagioclase feldspar and pyroxene
23.
Tuff
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Tuff is a type of rock made of volcanic ash ejected from a vent during a volcanic eruption. Following ejection and deposition, the ash is compacted into a rock in a process called consolidation. Tuff is sometimes called tufa, particularly used as construction material. Rock that contains greater than 50% tuff is considered tuffaceous, Tuff is a relatively soft rock, so it has been used for construction since ancient times. Since it is common in Italy the Romans used it often for construction, the Rapa Nui people used it to make most of the moai statues in Easter Island. Tuff can be classified as either sedimentary or igneous rocks and they are usually studied in the context of igneous petrology, although they are sometimes described using sedimentological terms. The material that is expelled in a volcanic eruption can be classified into three types, Volcanic gases, a mixture mostly of water vapour, carbon dioxide. Lava, the name of magma when it emerges and flows over the surface, and tephra, chunks of solid material of all shapes and sizes ejected and thrown through the air. Tephra is made when magma inside the volcano is blown apart by the expansion of hot volcanic gases. It is common for magma to explode as the gas dissolved in it comes out of solution as the pressure decreases when it flows to the surface and these violent explosions produce solid chunks of material that can then fly from the volcano. When these chunks are smaller than 2 mm in diameter they are called volcanic ash and it is made of small, slaggy pieces of lava and rock that have been tossed into the air by outbursts of steam and other gases. Among the loose beds of ash that cover the slopes of many volcanoes, in addition to true ashes of the kind described above, there are lumps of the old lavas and tuffs forming the walls of the crater, etc. In some great volcanic explosions nothing but materials of the kind were emitted. The ashes vary in size from large blocks twenty feet or more in diameter to the minutest impalpable dust, the large masses are called volcanic bombs, they have mostly a rounded, elliptical or pear-shaped form owing to rotation in the air before they solidified. Many of them have ribbed or nodular surfaces, and sometimes they have a crust intersected by many cracks like the surface of a loaf of bread, any ash in which they are very abundant is called an agglomerate. But many volcanoes stand near the sea, and the ashes cast out by them are mingled with the sediments that are gathering at the bottom of the waters, in this way ashy muds or sands or even in some cases ashy limestones are being formed. As a matter of fact most of the found in the older formations contain admixtures of clay, sand, and sometimes fossil shells. The showers of ashes often follow one another after longer or shorter intervals, the coarsest materials or agglomerates show this least distinctly, in the fine beds it is often developed in great perfection
24.
Coal mining
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Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its content, and, since the 1880s, has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore, in the United Kingdom and South Africa a coal mine and its structures are a colliery, a coal mine a pit, the above-ground structures the pit head. In Australia, colliery generally refers to a coal mine. In the United States colliery has been used to describe a coal mine operation, Coal mining has had many developments over the recent years, from the early days of men tunnelling, digging and manually extracting the coal on carts, to large open cut and long wall mines. Mining at this scale requires the use of draglines, trucks, conveyors, hydraulic jacks, small-scale mining of surface deposits dates back thousands of years. For example, in Roman Britain, the Romans were exploiting most of the major coalfields by the late 2nd century AD. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Britain in the 18th century and later spread to continental Europe, international trade expanded rapidly when coal-fed steam engines were built for the railways and steamships. Until the late nineteenth century coal was mined using a pick and shovel. Coal-cutting machines were introduced in the 1880s, by 1912, surface mining was conducted with steam shovels designed for coal mining. The most economical method of extraction from coal seams depends on the depth and quality of the seams. Coal mining processes are differentiated by whether they operate on the surface or underground, many coals extracted from both surface and underground mines require washing in a coal preparation plant. Surface mining and deep underground mining are the two methods of mining. Coal that occurs at depths of 180 to 300 ft are usually deep mined, for example, some western U. S. coal that occur at depths in excess of 200 ft are mined by the open pit methods, due to thickness of the seam 60–90 feet. Coals occurring below 300 ft are usually deep mined, However, there are open pit mining operations working on coal seams up to 1000–1500 feet below ground level, for instance Tagebau Hambach in Germany. When coal seams are near the surface, it may be economical to extract the coal using open cut mining methods, open cast coal mining recovers a greater proportion of the coal deposit than underground methods, as more of the coal seams in the strata may be exploited. In this mining method, explosives are first used in order to break through the surface or overburden, the overburden is then removed by draglines or by shovel and truck. Once the coal seam is exposed, it is drilled, fractured, the coal is then loaded onto large trucks or conveyors for transport to either the coal preparation plant or directly to where it will be used
25.
Gneiss
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Gneiss is a common distributed type of rock formed by high-grade regional metamorphic processes from pre-existing formations that were originally either igneous or sedimentary rocks. The foliations are characterized by alternating darker and lighter colored bands, the word gneiss comes from the Middle High German verb gneist. It has occurred in English since at least 1757, gneissic rocks are usually medium- to coarse-foliated, they are largely recrystallized but do not carry large quantities of micas, chlorite or other platy minerals. Gneisses that are metamorphosed igneous rocks or their equivalent are termed granite gneisses, diorite gneisses, gneiss rocks may also be named after a characteristic component such as garnet gneiss, biotite gneiss, albite gneiss, etc. Orthogneiss designates a gneiss derived from a rock, and paragneiss is one from a sedimentary rock. Gneissose rocks have properties similar to gneiss, gneiss appears to be striped in bands, called gneissic banding. The banding is developed under high temperature and pressure conditions, the minerals are arranged into layers that appear as bands in cross section. The appearance of layers, called compositional banding, occurs because the layers, the darker bands have relatively more mafic minerals. The lighter bands contain relatively more felsic and these forces stretch out the rock like a plastic, and the original material is spread out into sheets. Another cause of banding is metamorphic differentiation, which separates different materials into different layers through chemical reactions, not all gneiss rocks have detectable banding. In kyanite gneiss, crystals of kyanite appear as random clumps in what is mainly a plagioclase matrix, henderson gneiss is found in North Carolina and South Carolina, US, east of the Brevard Shear Zone. It has deformed into two sequential forms, the second, more warped, form is associated with the Brevard Fault, and the first deformation results from displacement to the southwest. Most of the Outer Hebrides of Scotland have a formed from Lewisian gneiss. In addition to the Outer Hebrides, they form basement deposits on the Scottish mainland west of the Moine Thrust and on the islands of Coll and Tiree. These rocks are igneous in origin, mixed with metamorphosed marble, quartzite and mica schist with later intrusions of basaltic dikes. Gneisses of Archean and Proterozoic age occur in the Baltic Shield, in antiquity, gneisses were also utilized in architectural construction. They were used to erect the Sphinx of Taharqo in the Nile Valley, list of rock types Blatt, Harvey and Robert J. Tracy. Petrology, Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic, 2nd ed. Freeman, mcKirdy, Alan, Roger Crofts and John Gordon
26.
Quartz-porphyry
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Quartz-porphyry, in laymans terms, is a type of volcanic rock containing large porphyritic crystals of quartz. These rocks are classified as hemi-crystalline acid rocks, the quartz crystals exist in a fine-grained matrix, usually of micro-crystalline or felsitic structure. In specimens, the quartz appears as small rounded, clear, greyish, vitreous blebs, many of the latter contain liquid carbonic acid and a bubble of gas that may exhibit vibratile motion under high magnifying powers. In addition to there are usually phenocrysts of feldspar, mostly orthoclase. The feldspars are usually full and cloudy from the formation of secondary kaolin and their crystals are larger than those of quartz and sometimes attain a length of two inches. Not uncommonly scales of biotite are visible in the specimens, being hexagonal plates, apatite, magnetite, and zircon, all in small but frequently perfect crystals, are almost universal minerals of the quartz-porphyries. The ground-mass is finely crystalline and to the eye has usually a dull aspect resembling common earthenware, it is grey, green. Often it is streaked or banded by flow during cooling, two main types may be recognized by means of the microscope, the felsitic and the microcrystalline. In the former the ingredients are so fine-grained that in the thinnest slices they cannot be determined by means of the microscope and this change is called devitrification, it is common in glasses, as these are essentially unstable. This re-deposited silica forms veins and patches of indefinite shape or may replace a considerable area of the rock by metasomatic substitution. The opal is amorphous, the chalcedony finely crystalline and often arranged in spherulitic growths that yield an excellent black cross in polarized light, the microcrystalline ground-masses are those that can be resolved into their component minerals in thin slices by use of the microscope. They prove to consist essentially of quartz and feldspars, which are often in grains of quite irregular shape, in other cases these two minerals are in graphic intergrowth, often forming radiate growths of spherulites consisting of fibers of extreme tenuity, this type is known as granophyric. As a whole those quartz-porphyries that have microcrystalline ground-masses are rocks of intrusive origin, elvan is a name given locally to the quartz-porphyries that occur as dikes in Cornwall. In many of them the matrix contains scales of colorless muscovite or minute needles of blue tourmaline, many ancient rhyolitic quartz-porphyries show on their weathered surfaces numerous globular projections. They may be several inches in diameter, and vary from this size down to a fraction of an inch. When struck with a hammer they may detach readily from the matrix as if their margins were defined by a fissure, rocks having these structures are common in north Wales and Cumberland, they occur also in Jersey, the Vosges and Hungary. It has been proposed to call them pyromerides, many of the older quartz-porphyries that occur in Paleozoic and Pre-Cambrian rocks have been affected by earth movements, and have experienced crushing and shearing. In this way they become schistose, and from their feldspar minute plates of sericitic white mica are developed, when phenocrysts were present they often remain, though rounded and dragged apart while the matrix flows around them
27.
Clastic
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Clastic rocks are composed of fragments, or clasts, of pre-existing minerals and rock. A clast is a fragment of geological detritus, chunks and smaller grains of rock broken off other rocks by physical weathering. Geologists use the term clastic with reference to sedimentary rocks as well as to particles in sediment transport whether in suspension or as bed load, clastic sedimentary rocks are rocks composed predominantly of broken pieces or clasts of older weathered and eroded rocks. Clastic sediments or sedimentary rocks are classified based on size, clast and cementing material composition. The classification factors are often useful in determining a samples environment of deposition, an example clastic environment would be a river system in which the full range of grains being transported by the moving water consist of pieces eroded from solid rock upstream. Grain size varies from clay in shales and claystones, through silt in siltstones, sand in sandstones, the Krumbein phi scale numerically orders these terms in a logarithmic size scale. Siliciclastic rocks are clastic rocks that are composed almost exclusively of silicon. The composition of sedimentary rocks includes the chemical and mineralogical components of the framework as well as the cementing material that make up these rocks. Boggs divides them into four categories, major minerals, accessory minerals, rock fragments, major minerals can be categorized into subdivisions based on their resistance to chemical decomposition. Those that possess a great resistance to decomposition are categorized as stable, while those that do not are considered less stable, the most common stable mineral in siliciclastic sedimentary rocks is quartz. Quartz makes up approximately 65 percent of framework grains present in sandstones, less stable minerals present in this type of rocks are feldspars, including both potassium and plagioclase feldspars. Feldspars comprise a considerably lesser portion of framework grains and minerals and they only make up about 15 percent of framework grains in sandstones and 5% of minerals in shales. Clay mineral groups are present in mudrocks but can be found in other siliciclastic sedimentary rocks at considerably lower levels. Accessory minerals are associated with those whose presence in the rock are not directly important to the classification of the specimen and these generally occur in smaller amounts in comparison to the quartz, and feldspars. Furthermore, those that do occur are generally heavy minerals or coarse grained micas, rock fragments also occur in the composition of siliciclastic sedimentary rocks and are responsible for about 10 -15 percent of the composition of sandstone. They generally make up most of the gravel size particles in conglomerates, though they sometimes are, rock fragments are not always sedimentary in origin. They can also be metamorphic or igneous, chemical cements vary in abundance but are predominantly found in sandstones. The two major types, are based and carbonate based
28.
Unconformity
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An unconformity is a buried erosional or non-depositional surface separating two rock masses or strata of different ages, indicating that sediment deposition was not continuous. In general, the layer was exposed to erosion for an interval of time before deposition of the younger. The significance of angular unconformity was shown by James Hutton, who found examples of Huttons Unconformity at Jedburgh in 1787, the rocks above an unconformity are younger than the rocks beneath. An unconformity represents time during which no sediments were preserved in a region, the local record for that time interval is missing and geologists must use other clues to discover that part of the geologic history of that area. The interval of time not represented is called a hiatus. A disconformity is an unconformity between parallel layers of rocks which represents a period of erosion or non-deposition. Disconformities are marked by features of subaerial erosion and this type of erosion can leave channels and paleosols in the rock record. A paraconformity is a type of disconformity in which the separation is a simple bedding plane with no obvious buried erosional surface. A nonconformity exists between sedimentary rocks and metamorphic or igneous rocks when the rock lies above and was deposited on the pre-existing. Namely, if the rock below the break is igneous or has lost its bedding due to metamorphism, the whole sequence may later be deformed and tilted by further orogenic activity. A typical case history is presented by the evolution of the Briançonnais realm during the Jurassic. A paraconformity is a type of unconformity in which strata are parallel, there is no apparent erosion and it is also called nondepositional unconformity or pseudoconformity. A buttress unconformity occurs when younger bedding is deposited against older strata thus influencing its bedding structure. S, bureau of Mines Dictionary of Mining, Mineral, and Related Terms published on CD-ROM in 1996
29.
Intrusive rock
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Intrusive rock is formed when magma crystallizes and solidifies underground to form intrusions, for example plutons, batholiths, dikes, sills, laccoliths, and volcanic necks. Intrusive rock forms within Earths crust from the crystallization of magma, magma slowly pushes up from deep within the earth into any cracks or spaces it can find, sometimes pushing existing country rock out of the way, a process that can take millions of years. As the magma slowly cools into a solid, the different parts of the magma crystallize into rocks, many mountain ranges, such as the Sierra Nevada in California, are formed mostly from large granite intrusions, see Sierra Nevada Batholith. Intrusions are one of the two ways igneous rock can form, the other is extrusive rock, that is, an eruption or similar event. Technically speaking, an intrusion is any formation of igneous rock, rock formed from magma that cools. In contrast, an extrusion consists of rock, rock formed above the surface of the crust. Large bodies of magma that solidify underground before they reach the surface of the crust are called plutons, plutonic rocks form 7% of the Earths current land surface. Coarse-grained intrusive igneous rocks form at depth within the earth are called abyssal while those that form near the surface are called subvolcanic or hypabyssal. The term intrusive suite seems near synonymous, there is, however, a modest difference, An intrusive suite is a group of plutons related in time and space. Intrusions vary widely, from mountain-range-sized batholiths to thin veinlike fracture fillings of aplite or pegmatite, when exposed by erosion, such batholiths may occupy large areas. A well-known example of an intrusion is Devils Tower, another is Shiprock, New Mexico, USA. Be the pluton is large, it may be called a batholith or a stock, Intrusive rocks are characterized by large crystal sizes, and as the individual crystals are visible, the rock is called phaneritic. This is as the magma cools underground, and while cooling may be fast or slow, cooling is slower than on the surface, if it runs parallel to rock layers, it is called a sill. If an intrusion makes rocks above rise to form a dome, as heat dissipation is slow, and as the rock is under pressure, crystals form, and no vitreous rapidly chilled matter is present. The intrusions did not flow while solidifying, hence do not show lines, contained gases could not escape through the thick strata, thus form cavities, which can often be observed. Because their crystals are of the rough equal size, these rocks are said to be equigranular, there is typically no distinction between a first generation of large well-shaped crystals and a fine-grained ground-mass. Earlier crystals originated at a time when most of the rock was still liquid and are more or less perfect, later crystals are less regular in shape because they were compelled to occupy the spaces left between the already-formed crystals. The former case is said to be idiomorphic, the latter is xenomorphic, there are also many other characteristics that serve to distinguish the members of these two groups
30.
Limestone
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Limestone is a sedimentary rock, composed mainly of skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, forams and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate, about 10% of sedimentary rocks are limestones. The solubility of limestone in water and weak acid solutions leads to karst landscapes, most cave systems are through limestone bedrock. The first geologist to distinguish limestone from dolomite was Belsazar Hacquet in 1778, like most other sedimentary rocks, most limestone is composed of grains. Most grains in limestone are skeletal fragments of organisms such as coral or foraminifera. Other carbonate grains comprising limestones are ooids, peloids, intraclasts and these organisms secrete shells made of aragonite or calcite, and leave these shells behind when they die. Limestone often contains variable amounts of silica in the form of chert or siliceous skeletal fragment, some limestones do not consist of grains at all, and are formed completely by the chemical precipitation of calcite or aragonite, i. e. travertine. Secondary calcite may be deposited by supersaturated meteoric waters and this produces speleothems, such as stalagmites and stalactites. Another form taken by calcite is oolitic limestone, which can be recognized by its granular appearance, the primary source of the calcite in limestone is most commonly marine organisms. Some of these organisms can construct mounds of rock known as reefs, below about 3,000 meters, water pressure and temperature conditions cause the dissolution of calcite to increase nonlinearly, so limestone typically does not form in deeper waters. Limestones may also form in lacustrine and evaporite depositional environments, calcite can be dissolved or precipitated by groundwater, depending on several factors, including the water temperature, pH, and dissolved ion concentrations. Calcite exhibits a characteristic called retrograde solubility, in which it becomes less soluble in water as the temperature increases. Impurities will cause limestones to exhibit different colors, especially with weathered surfaces, Limestone may be crystalline, clastic, granular, or massive, depending on the method of formation. Crystals of calcite, quartz, dolomite or barite may line small cavities in the rock, when conditions are right for precipitation, calcite forms mineral coatings that cement the existing rock grains together, or it can fill fractures. Travertine is a banded, compact variety of limestone formed along streams, particularly there are waterfalls. Calcium carbonate is deposited where evaporation of the leaves a solution supersaturated with the chemical constituents of calcite. Tufa, a porous or cellular variety of travertine, is found near waterfalls, coquina is a poorly consolidated limestone composed of pieces of coral or shells. During regional metamorphism that occurs during the building process, limestone recrystallizes into marble
31.
Dolomite
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Dolomite is an anhydrous carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate, ideally CaMg2. The term is used for a sedimentary carbonate rock composed mostly of the mineral dolomite. An alternative name used for the dolomitic rock type is dolostone. Most probably the mineral dolomite was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1768, nicolas-Théodore de Saussure first named the mineral in March 1792. The mineral dolomite crystallizes in the trigonal-rhombohedral system and it forms white, tan, gray, or pink crystals. Dolomite is a carbonate, having an alternating structural arrangement of calcium and magnesium ions. It does not rapidly dissolve or effervesce in dilute hydrochloric acid as calcite does, solid solution exists between dolomite, the iron-dominant ankerite and the manganese-dominant kutnohorite. Small amounts of iron in the give the crystals a yellow to brown tint. Manganese substitutes in the structure also up to three percent MnO. A high manganese content gives the crystals a rosy pink color, lead, zinc, and cobalt also substitute in the structure for magnesium. The mineral dolomite is closely related to huntite Mg3Ca4, because dolomite can be dissolved by slightly acidic water, areas of dolomite are important as aquifers and contribute to karst terrain formation. Modern dolomite formation has been found to occur under conditions in supersaturated saline lagoons along the Rio de Janeiro coast of Brazil, namely, Lagoa Vermelha. It is often thought that dolomite will develop only with the help of sulfate-reducing bacteria, however, low-temperature dolomite may occur in natural environments rich in organic matter and microbial cell surfaces. This occurs as a result of magnesium complexation by carboxyl groups associated with organic matter, vast deposits of dolomite are present in the geological record, but the mineral is relatively rare in modern environments. Reproducible, inorganic low-temperature syntheses of dolomite and magnesite were published for the first time in 1999, the general principle governing the course of this irreversible geochemical reaction has been coined breaking Ostwalds step rule. There is some evidence for an occurrence of dolomite. One example is that of the formation of dolomite in the bladder of a Dalmatian dog. In 2015, it was discovered that the direct crystallization of dolomite can occur from solution at temperatures between 60 and 220 °C
32.
Quartzite
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Quartzite is a hard, non-foliated metamorphic rock which was originally pure quartz sandstone. Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to grey, though quartzites often occur in shades of pink. Other colors, such as yellow, green, blue and orange, are due to other minerals, when sandstone is cemented to quartzite, the individual quartz grains recrystallize along with the former cementing material to form an interlocking mosaic of quartz crystals. Most or all of the texture and sedimentary structures of the sandstone are erased by the metamorphism. The grainy, sandpaper-like surface becomes glassy in appearance, minor amounts of former cementing materials, iron oxide, silica, carbonate and clay, often migrate during recrystallization and metamorphosis. This causes streaks and lenses to form within the quartzite, orthoquartzite is a very pure quartz sandstone composed of usually well-rounded quartz grains cemented by silica. Orthoquartzite is often 99% SiO2 with only minor amounts of iron oxide and trace resistant minerals such as zircon, rutile. Although few fossils are present, the original texture and sedimentary structures are preserved. The term is traditionally used for quartz-cemented quartz arenites. Quartzite is very resistant to weathering and often forms ridges. The nearly pure silica content of the rock provides little for soil, therefore, because of its hardness and angular shape, crushed quartzite is often used as railway ballast. Quartzite is a stone and may be used to cover walls, as roofing tiles, as flooring. Its use for countertops in kitchens is expanding rapidly and it is harder and more resistant to stains than granite. Crushed quartzite is used in road construction. High purity quartzite is used to produce ferrosilicon, industrial silica sand, during the Paleolithic quartzite was used, in addition to flint, quartz, and other lithic raw materials, for making stone tools. Quartzite is also found in the Morenci Copper Mine in Arizona, the town of Quartzsite in western Arizona derives its name from the quartzites in the nearby mountains in both Arizona and Southeastern California. A glassy vitreous quartzite has been described from the Belt Supergroup in the Coeur d’Alene district of northern Idaho, in the United Kingdom, a craggy ridge of quartzite called the Stiperstones runs parallel with the Pontesford-Linley fault,6 km north-west of the Long Mynd in south Shropshire
33.
Tremolite
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Tremolite is a member of the amphibole group of silicate minerals with composition, ☐Ca2Si8O222. Tremolite forms by metamorphism of sediments rich in dolomite and quartz, tremolite forms a series with actinolite and ferro-actinolite. Pure magnesium tremolite is creamy white, but the color grades to dark green with increasing iron content and it has a hardness on Mohs scale of 5 to 6. Nephrite, one of the two minerals of the jade, is a green variety of tremolite. The fibrous form of tremolite is one of the six recognised types of asbestos and this material is toxic and inhaling the fibers can lead to asbestosis, lung cancer and both pleural and peritoneal mesothelioma. Fibrous tremolite is sometimes found as a contaminant in vermiculite, chrysotile, tremolite is an indicator of metamorphic grade since at high temperatures it converts to diopside. Associated minerals include calcite, dolomite, grossular, wollastonite, talc, diopside, tremolite was first described in 1789 for an occurrence in Campolungo, Piumogna Valley, Leventina, Ticino, Switzerland. One of the six recognized types of asbestos, approximately 36,500 tonnes of tremolite asbestos are mined annually in India. It is otherwise only found as a contaminant, libby, Montana – location of asbestos-related ailments caused by tremolite Mineral may unlock secrets of Venuss ancient oceans, New Scientist,10 October 2007
34.
Diopside
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Diopside is a monoclinic pyroxene mineral with composition MgCaSi2O6. It forms complete solid solution series with hedenbergite and augite, and partial solid solutions with orthopyroxene and it forms variably colored, but typically dull green crystals in the monoclinic prismatic class. It has two distinct prismatic cleavages at 87 and 93° typical of the pyroxene series. It has a Mohs hardness of six, a Vickers hardness of 7.7 GPa at a load of 0.98 N, and a specific gravity of 3.25 to 3.55. It is transparent to translucent with indices of refraction of nα=1. 663–1.699, nβ=1. 671–1.705, the optic angle is 58° to 63°. Diopside is found in igneous rocks, and diopside-rich augite is common in mafic rocks, such as olivine basalt. Diopside is also found in a variety of rocks, such as in contact metamorphosed skarns developed from high silica dolomites. It is an important mineral in the Earths mantle and is common in peridotite xenoliths erupted in kimberlite, some vermiculite deposits, most notably those in Libby, Montana, are contaminated with chrysotile that formed from diopside. At relatively high temperatures, there is a miscibility gap between diopside and pigeonite, and at lower temperatures, between diopside and orthopyroxene. Chrome diopside is a constituent of peridotite xenoliths, and dispersed grains are found near kimberlite pipes. Occurrences are reported in Canada, South Africa, Russia, Brazil, much chromian diopside from the Green River Basin localities and several of the State Line Kimberlites have been gem in character. Gemstone quality diopside is found in two forms, the black star diopside and the chrome diopside, at 5. 5–6.5 on the Mohs scale, chrome diopside is relatively soft to scratch. Violane is a variety of diopside, violet to light blue in color. Diopside derives its name from the Greek dis, twice, and òpsè, Diopside was discovered and first described about 1800, by Brazilian naturalist Jose Bonifacio de Andrada e Silva. Diopside based ceramics and glass-ceramics have potential applications in various technological areas, a diopside based glass-ceramic named silceram was produced by scientists from Imperial College, UK during the 1980s from blast furnace slag and other waste products. The as produced glass-ceramic is a structural material. Similarly, diopside based ceramics and glass-ceramics have potential applications in the field of biomaterials, nuclear waste immobilization, S. Carter, C. B. Ponton, R. D. Rawlings, P. S. Rogers, Microstructure, chemistry, elastic properties and internal-friction of silceram glass-ceramics, T. Nonami, S. Tsutsumi, Study of diopside ceramics for biomaterials, Journal of Materials Science, Materials in Medicine 10 475-479
35.
Scapolite
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The scapolites are a group of rock-forming silicate minerals composed of aluminium, calcium, and sodium silicate with chlorine, carbonate and sulfate. The two endmembers are meionite and marialite, silvialite 4Al6Si6O24 is also a recognized member of the group. The group is a mixture of the meionite and marialite endmembers. The tetragonal crystals are hemihedral with parallel faces, and at times of considerable size and they are distinct and usually have the form of square columns, some cleavages parallel to the prism-faces. Crystals are usually white or greyish-white and opaque, though meionite is found as colorless glassy crystals in the limestone blocks of Monte Somma. The hardness is 5 -6, and the specific gravity varies with the composition between 2.7 and 2.5. The scapolites are especially liable to alteration by weathering processes, with the development of mica, kaolin, etc. owing to this alteration, and to the variations in composition, numerous varieties have been distinguished by special names. Scapolite is commonly a mineral of metamorphic origin, occurring usually in crystalline marbles, the long slender prisms abundant in the crystalline marbles and schists in the Pyrenees are known as dipyre or couzeranite. Large crystals of common scapolite are found in the deposits in the neighborhood of Bamble near Brevik in Norway. According to their genesis the scapolite rocks fall naturally into four groups, the scapolite limestones and contact metamorphic rocks. As silicates rich in calcium, it is to be expected that these minerals will be found where impure limestones have been crystallized by contact with an igneous magma. Even meionite occurs in association, being principally obtained in small crystals lining cavities in ejected blocks of crystalline limestone at Vesuvius. Scapolite and wernerite are far more common at the contacts of limestone with intrusive masses, the minerals that accompany them are calcite, epidote, vesuvianite, garnet, wollastonite, diopside and amphibole. The scapolites are colorless, flesh-colored, grey or greenish, occasionally they are black from the presence of very small enclosures of graphitic material. Commonly they weather to micaceous aggregate, but sometimes an isotropic substance of unknown nature is seen replacing them, in crystalline limestones and calc–silicate rocks they occur in small and usually inconspicuous grains mingled with the other components of the rock. Large, nearly idiomorphic crystals are found in argillaceous rocks that have suffered thermal metamorphism. In the Pyrenees there are outcrops of limestone penetrated by igneous rocks described as ophites and iherzolites. At the contacts scapolite occurs in a number of places
36.
Zoisite
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Zoisite, first known as saualpite, after its type locality, is a calcium aluminium hydroxy sorosilicate belonging to the epidote group of minerals. Zoisite occurs as prismatic, orthorhombic crystals or in massive form, zoisite may be blue to violet, green, brown, pink, yellow, gray, or colorless. It has a vitreous luster and a conchoidal to uneven fracture, when euhedral, zoisite crystals are striated parallel to the principal axis. Also parallel to the axis is one direction of perfect cleavage. The mineral is between 6 and 7 on the Mohs hardness scale, and its specific gravity ranges from 3.10 to 3.38 and it streaks white and is said to be brittle. Clinozoisite is a common monoclinic polymorph of Ca2Al3O. Transparent material is fashioned into gemstones while translucent-to-opaque material is usually carved, a metamorphic rock known as anyolite consists of green zoisite with black tschermakite and ruby crystals. The mineral was described by Abraham Gottlob Werner in 1805 and he named it after the Carniolan naturalist Sigmund Zois, who sent him its specimens from Saualpe in Carinthia. Zois realized that this was an unknown mineral when it was brought to him by a dealer, presumed to be Simon Prešern. Sources of zoisite include Tanzania, Kenya, Norway, Switzerland, Austria, India, Pakistan, and the U. S. state of Washington. List of minerals List of minerals named after people Hurlbut, Cornelius S. Klein, Cornelis,1985, Manual of Mineralogy, 20th ed. ISBN 0-471-80580-7 Faye, G H, Nickel, on the pleochroism of vanadium-bearing zoisite from Tanzania
37.
Ironstone
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This term is customarily restricted to hard coarsely banded, nonbanded, and noncherty sedimentary rocks of post-Precambrian age. The Precambrian deposits, which have a different origin, are known as banded iron formations. Freshly cleaved ironstone is usually grey, the brown external appearance is due to oxidation of its surface. Ironstone, being a rock is not always homogeneous, and can be found in a red and black banded form called tiger iron. Sometimes ironstone hosts concretions or opal gems, Ironstone occurs in a variety of forms. The various forms of ironstone include siderite nodules, deeply weathered saprolite, i. e. Ironstone, although widespread, is a limited source of iron. Historically, most of British iron originated from ironstone, but it is now used for this purpose because it is far too limited in quantity to be an economic source of iron ore. Its iron quality is in its resistance to chipping, not in any ingredient in its manufacture, the stone can also be used as a building material. Examples include the churches at Kirby Bellars and South Croxton in Leicestershire. Iron ore Iron-rich sedimentary rocks Oxfordshire Ironstone Railway
38.
Hematite
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Hematite, also spelled as haematite, is the mineral form of iron oxide, one of several iron oxides. Hematite crystallizes in the lattice system, and it has the same crystal structure as ilmenite. Hematite and ilmenite form a solid solution at temperatures above 950 °C. Hematite is colored black to steel or silver-gray, brown to reddish brown and it is mined as the main ore of iron. Varieties include kidney ore, martite, iron rose and specularite, while the forms of hematite vary, they all have a rust-red streak. Hematite is harder than iron, but much more brittle. Maghemite is a hematite- and magnetite-related oxide mineral, huge deposits of hematite are found in banded iron formations. Gray hematite is typically found in places that can have still standing water or mineral hot springs, the mineral can precipitate out of water and collect in layers at the bottom of a lake, spring, or other standing water. Hematite can also occur without water, however, usually as the result of volcanic activity, the name hematite is derived from the Greek word for blood αἷμα haima, due to the red coloration found in some varities of hematite. The color of hematite lends itself to use as a pigment, ochre is a clay that is colored by varying amounts of hematite, varying between 20% and 70%. Red ochre contains unhydrated hematite, whereas yellow ochre contains hydrated hematite, the principal use of ochre is for tinting with a permanent color. The red chalk writing of this mineral was one of the earliest in the history of humans, the powdery mineral was first used 164,000 years ago by the Pinnacle-Point man possibly for social purposes. Hematite residues are found in graves from 80,000 years ago. Near Rydno in Poland and Lovas in Hungary red chalk mines have been found that are from 5000 BC, rich deposits of hematite have been found on the island of Elba that have been mined since the time of the Etruscans. Adding to the surprise was a transition with a decrease in temperature at around 260 K to a phase with no net magnetic moment. The disappearance of the moment with a decrease in temperature at 260 K is caused by a change in the anisotropy which causes the moments to align along the c axis, in this configuration, spin canting does not reduce the energy. The magnetic properties of bulk hematite differ from their nanoscale counterparts, for example, the Morin transition temperature of hematite decreases with a decrease in the particle size. Two other end-members are referred to as protohematite and hydrohematite, enhanced magnetic coercivities for hematite have been achieved by dry-heating a 2-line ferrihydrite precursor prepared from solution
39.
Gypsum
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Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer, and as the constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard chalk. Mohs scale of hardness, based on scratch Hardness comparison. It forms as a mineral and as a hydration product of anhydrite. The word gypsum is derived from the Greek word γύψος, plaster, because the quarries of the Montmartre district of Paris have long furnished burnt gypsum used for various purposes, this dehydrated gypsum became known as plaster of Paris. Upon addition of water, after a few tens of minutes plaster of Paris becomes regular gypsum again, causing the material to harden or set in ways that are useful for casting, Gypsum was known in Old English as spærstān, spear stone, referring to its crystalline projections. Gypsum may act as a source of sulfur for plant growth, which was discovered by J. M. Mayer, american farmers were so anxious to acquire it that a lively smuggling trade with Nova Scotia evolved, resulting in the so-called Plaster War of 1820. In the 19th century, it was known as lime sulfate or sulfate of lime. Gypsum is moderately water-soluble and, in contrast to most other salts, it exhibits retrograde solubility, when gypsum is heated in air it loses water and converts first to calcium sulfate hemihydrate, and, if heated further, to anhydrous calcium sulfate. As for anhydrite, its solubility in saline solutions and in brines is also dependent on NaCl concentration. Gypsum crystals are found to contain water and hydrogen bonding. Gypsum occurs in nature as flattened and often twinned crystals, and transparent, selenite contains no significant selenium, rather, both substances were named for the ancient Greek word for the Moon. Selenite may also occur in a silky, fibrous form, in case it is commonly called satin spar. Finally, it may also be granular or quite compact, in hand-sized samples, it can be anywhere from transparent to opaque. A very fine-grained white or lightly tinted variety of gypsum, called alabaster, is prized for ornamental work of various sorts, in arid areas, gypsum can occur in a flower-like form, typically opaque, with embedded sand grains called desert rose. It also forms some of the largest crystals found in nature, up to 12 m long, Gypsum is a common mineral, with thick and extensive evaporite beds in association with sedimentary rocks. Deposits are known to occur in strata from as far back as the Archaean eon, Gypsum is deposited from lake and sea water, as well as in hot springs, from volcanic vapors, and sulfate solutions in veins. Hydrothermal anhydrite in veins is commonly hydrated to gypsum by groundwater in near-surface exposures and it is often associated with the minerals halite and sulfur
40.
Serpentine subgroup
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The serpentine subgroup are greenish, brownish, or spotted minerals commonly found in serpentinite rocks. They are used as a source of magnesium and asbestos, the name is thought to come from the greenish color being that of a serpent. In mineralogy and gemology, serpentine may refer to any of 20 varieties belonging to the serpentine group, owing to admixture, these varieties are not always easy to individualize, and distinctions are not usually made. There are three important mineral polymorphs of serpentine, antigorite, chrysotile and lizardite, the serpentine group of minerals are polymorphous, meaning that they have the same chemical formulae, but the atoms are arranged into different structures, or crystal lattices. Chrysotile, which has a habit, is one polymorph of serpentine and is an important component of asbestos. Other polymorphs in the group may have a platy habit. Antigorite and lizardite are the polymorphs with platy habit, many types of serpentine have been used for jewellery and hardstone carving, sometimes under the name false jade or Teton jade. Their olive green colour and smooth or scaly appearance is the basis of the name from the Latin serpentinus, meaning serpent rock and they have their origins in metamorphic alterations of peridotite and pyroxene. Serpentines may also pseudomorphously replace other magnesium silicates, alterations may be incomplete, causing physical properties of serpentines to vary widely. Where they form a significant part of the surface, the soil is unusually high in clay. Antigorite is the polymorph of serpentine that most commonly forms during metamorphism of wet ultramafic rocks and is stable at the highest temperatures—to over 600 °C at depths of 60 km or so. In contrast, lizardite and chrysotile typically form near the Earths surface and break down at low temperatures. It has been suggested that chrysotile is never stable relative to either of the other two serpentine polymorphs, samples of the oceanic crust and uppermost mantle from ocean basins document that ultramafic rocks there commonly contain abundant serpentine. Antigorite contains water in its structure, about 13 percent by weight, the flora is generally very distinctive, with specialised, slow-growing species. Areas of serpentine-derived soil will show as strips of shrubland and open, scattered small trees within otherwise forested areas, most serpentines are opaque to translucent, light, soft, infusible and susceptible to acids. All are microcrystalline and massive in habit, never being found as single crystals, lustre may be vitreous, greasy or silky. Colours range from white to grey, yellow to green, and brown to black, many are intergrown with other minerals, such as calcite and dolomite. Occurrence is worldwide, New Caledonia, Canada, US, Afghanistan, Britain, Greece, China, Ural Mountains, France, Korea, Austria, India, Myanmar, New Zealand, Norway and Italy are notable localities
41.
Ultramafic rock
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Ultramafic are igneous and meta-igneous rocks with a very low silica content, generally >18% MgO, high FeO, low potassium, and are composed of usually greater than 90% mafic minerals. The Earths mantle is composed of ultramafic rocks, ultrabasic is a more inclusive term that includes igneous rocks with low silica content that may not be extremely enriched in Fe and Mg, such as carbonatites and ultrapotassic igneous rocks. Intrusive ultramafic rocks are found in large, layered ultramafic intrusions where differentiated rock types often occur in layers. Such cumulate rock types do not represent the chemistry of the magma from which they crystallized, the ultramafic intrusives include the dunites, peridotites and pyroxenites. Other rare varieties include troctolite which has a percentage of calcic plagioclase. Gabbro and norite often occur in the portions of the layered ultramafic sequences. Hornblendite and, rarely phlogopite, are also found, subvolcanic ultramafic rocks and dykes persist longer, but are also rare. Many of the lavas being produced on Io may be ultramafic, mercury also appears to have ultramafic volcanic rock. Examples include komatiite and picritic basalt, komatiites can be host to ore deposits of nickel. Ultrapotassic, ultramafic rocks such as lamprophyre, lamproite and kimberlite are known to have reached the surface of the Earth. Although no modern eruptions have been observed, analogues are preserved, most of these rocks occur as dikes, diatremes, lopoliths or laccoliths, and very rarely, intrusions. Most kimberlite and lampproite occurrences occur as volcanic and subvolcanic diatremes and maars, vents of Proterozoic lamproite, and Cenozoic lamproite are known, as are vents of Devonian lamprophyre. Kimberlite pipes in Canada, Russia and South Africa have incompletely preserved tephra and these are generally diatreme events and as such are not lava flows although tephra and ash deposits are partially preserved. These represent low-volume volatile melts and attain their ultramafic chemistry via a different process to typical ultramafic rocks, metamorphism of ultramafic rocks in the presence of water and/or carbon dioxide results in two main classes of metamorphic ultramafic rock, talc carbonate and serpentinite. When such metamorphic fluids have less than 10% molar proportion of CO2, reactions favor serpentinisation, the majority of ultramafic rocks are exposed in orogenic belts, and predominate in Archaean and Proterozoic terranes. Ultramafic magmas in the Phanerozoic are rarer, and there are very few recognised true ultramafic lavas in the Phanerozoic, many surface exposures of ultramafic rocks occur in ophiolite complexes where deep mantle-derived rocks have been obducted onto continental crust along and above subduction zones. Serpentine soil is a rich, calcium, potassium and phosphorus poor soil that develops on the regolith derived from ultramafic rocks. Ultramafic rocks also contain elevated amounts of chromium and nickel which may be toxic to plants, as a result, a distinctive type of vegetation develops on these soils
42.
Olivine
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The mineral olivine is a magnesium iron silicate with the formula 2SiO4. Thus it is a type of nesosilicate or orthosilicate and it is a common mineral in the Earths subsurface but weathers quickly on the surface. The ratio of magnesium and iron varies between the two endmembers of the solid solution series, forsterite and fayalite, compositions of olivine are commonly expressed as molar percentages of forsterite and fayalite. Forsterite has a high melting temperature at atmospheric pressure, almost 1,900 °C. The melting temperature varies smoothly between the two endmembers, as do other properties, olivine incorporates only minor amounts of elements other than oxygen, silicon, magnesium and iron. Manganese and nickel commonly are the elements present in highest concentrations. Olivine gives its name to the group of minerals with a structure which includes tephroite, monticellite and kirschsteinite. It has a structure similar to magnetite but uses one quadravalent. Olivine gemstones are called peridot and chrysolite, olivine is named for its typically olive-green color, though it may alter to a reddish color from the oxidation of iron. Translucent olivine is sometimes used as a gemstone called peridot, some of the finest gem-quality olivine has been obtained from a body of mantle rocks on Zabargad island in the Red Sea. Olivine occurs in mafic and ultramafic igneous rocks and as a primary mineral in certain metamorphic rocks. Mg-rich olivine crystallizes from magma that is rich in magnesium and low in silica and that magma crystallizes to mafic rocks such as gabbro and basalt. Ultramafic rocks such as peridotite and dunite can be left after extraction of magmas. Olivine and high pressure structural variants constitute over 50% of the Earths upper mantle, the metamorphism of impure dolomite or other sedimentary rocks with high magnesium and low silica content also produces Mg-rich olivine, or forsterite. In contrast, Mg-rich olivine does not occur stably with silica minerals, Mg-rich olivine is stable to pressures equivalent to a depth of about 410 km within Earth. Mg-rich olivine has also discovered in meteorites, on the Moon and Mars, falling into infant stars. Such meteorites include chondrites, collections of debris from the early Solar System, the spectral signature of olivine has been seen in the dust disks around young stars. The tails of comets often have the signature of olivine
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Rhyolite
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Rhyolite is an igneous, volcanic rock, of felsic composition. It may have any texture from glassy to aphanitic to porphyritic, the mineral assemblage is usually quartz, sanidine and plagioclase. Biotite and hornblende are common accessory minerals and it is the extrusive equivalent to granite. Rhyolite can be considered as the equivalent to the plutonic granite rock. Due to their content of silica and low iron and magnesium contents, rhyolite melts are highly polymerized. They also occur as breccias or in volcanic plugs and dikes, rhyolites that cool too quickly to grow crystals form a natural glass or vitrophyre, also called obsidian. Slower cooling forms microscopic crystals in the lava and results in such as flow foliations, spherulitic, nodular. Some rhyolite is highly vesicular pumice, many eruptions of rhyolite are highly explosive and the deposits may consist of fallout tephra/tuff or of ignimbrites. Eruptions of rhyolite are relatively rare compared to eruptions of less felsic lavas, etsch Valley Vulcanite Group near Bolzano and the surrounding area Gréixer rhyolitic complex at Moixeró range Vosges Iceland, all active and extinct central volcanoes, e. g. g. Wichita Mountains within the Southern Oklahoma Aulacogen St, in North American pre-historic times, rhyolite was quarried extensively in eastern Pennsylvania in the United States. Among the leading quarries was the Carbaugh Run Rhyolite Quarry Site in Adams County, comendite List of rock types Pantellerite Thunderegg University of North Dakota description of rhyolite Information from rocks-rock. com
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Mudrock
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Mudrocks are a class of fine grained siliciclastic sedimentary rocks. The varying types of mudrocks include, siltstone, claystone, mudstone, slate, most of the particles of which the stone is composed are less than 0.0625 mm and are too small to study readily in the field. At first sight the rock types look quite similar, however, there are important differences in composition, there has been a great deal of disagreement involving the classification of mudrocks. Fine sediment is the most abundant product of erosion, and these contribute to the overall omnipresence of mudrocks. With increased pressure over time the platey clay minerals may become aligned and this finely bedded material that splits readily into thin layers is called shale, as distinct from mudstone. The lack of fissility or layering in mudstone may be due either to the texture or to the disruption of layering by burrowing organisms in the sediment prior to lithification. From the beginning of civilization, when pottery and mudbricks were made by hand, to now, literature on this omnipresent rock-type has been increasing in recent years, and technology continues to allow for better analysis. Mudrocks, by definition, consist of at least fifty percent mud-sized particles, specifically, mud is composed of silt-sized particles that are between 1/16 – 1/256 of a millimeter in diameter, and clay-sized particles which are less than 1/256 millimeter. Mudrocks contain mostly clay minerals, and quartz and feldspars and they can also contain the following particles at less than 63 micrometres, calcite, dolomite, siderite, pyrite, marcasite, heavy minerals, and even organic carbon. There are various synonyms for fine-grained siliciclastic rocks containing fifty percent or more of its constituents less than 1/256 of a millimeter. Mudstones, shales, lutites, and argillites are common qualifiers, or umbrella-terms, however, the term mudrock allows for further subdivisions of siltstone, claystone, mudstone, and shale. For example, a siltstone would be made of more than 50-percent grains that equate to 1/16 - 1/256 of a millimeter, Shale denotes fissility, which implies an ability to part easily or break parallel to stratification. Siltstone, mudstone, and claystone implies lithified, or hardened, a claystone is lithified, and non-fissile mudrock. In order for a rock to be considered a claystone, it must consist of up to fifty percent clay, clay minerals are integral to mudrocks, and represent the first or second most abundant constituent by volume. There are 35 recognized clay mineral species on Earth and they make muds cohesive and plastic, or able to flow. Clay is by far the smallest particles recognized in mudrocks, most materials in nature are clay minerals, but quartz, feldspar, iron oxides, and carbonates can weather to sizes of a typical clay mineral. For a size comparison, a particle is 1/1000 the size of a sand grain. This means a particle will travel 1000 times further at constant water velocity
45.
Andalusite
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Andalusite is an aluminium nesosilicate mineral with the chemical formula Al2SiO5. Andalusite is trimorphic with kyanite and sillimanite, being the lower pressure mid temperature polymorph, at higher temperatures and pressures, andalusite may convert to sillimanite. Thus, as with its other polymorphs, andalusite is an index mineral, providing clues to depth. The variety chiastolite commonly contains dark inclusions of carbon or clay which form a pattern when shown in cross-section. A clear variety first found in Andalusia, Spain can be cut into a gemstone, faceted andalusite stones give a play of red, green, and yellow colors that resembles a muted form of iridescence, although the colors are actually the result of unusually strong pleochroism. It is associated with mica schist which increases alkali content in ultimate product, andalusite is an aluminium compound with high heat resistance used in furnaces, kilns and other industrial processes. South Africa possesses by far the largest portion of the world’s known andalusite deposits, andalusite is a common metamorphic mineral which forms under low pressure and low to high temperatures. The minerals kyanite and sillimanite are polymorphs of andalusite, each occurring under different temperature-pressure regimes and are rarely found together in the same rock. Because of this the three minerals are a tool to help identify the pressure-temperature paths of the host rock in which they are found. It was first described and named after the locality in the Ronda Massif, Málaga, Andalusia. List of minerals http, //www. gemstone. org/gem-by-gem/english/andalusite. html http, //s804. photobucket. com/user/mutantnoggins/media/AndalusiteAND10x5mag_zpsefd120ed. jpg. html Source, Andalusia, Spain
46.
Staurolite
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Staurolite is a red brown to black, mostly opaque, nesosilicate mineral with a white streak. It crystallizes in the crystal system, has a Mohs hardness of 7 to 7.5. Magnesium, zinc and manganese substitute in the site and trivalent iron can substitute for aluminium. Staurolite often occurs twinned in a characteristic cross-shape, called cruciform penetration twinning, in handsamples, macroscopically visible staurolite crystals are of prismatic shape. In thin sections staurolite is commonly twinned and shows lower first order birefringence similar to quartz and it can be identified in metamorphic rocks by its swiss cheese appearance and often mantled porphyroblastic character. The name is derived from the Greek, stauros for cross, staurolite is a regional metamorphic mineral of intermediate to high grade. It occurs with almandine garnet, micas, kyanite, as well as albite, biotite and it is the official state mineral of the U. S. state of Georgia and is also to be found in the Lepontine Alps in Switzerland. Staurolite is most commonly found in Fannin County, Georgia and it is also found in Fairy Stone State Park in Patrick County, Virginia. The park is named for a name for staurolite from a legend in the area. Samples are also found in Island Park, Idaho, near Henrys Lake, Taos, New Mexico, near Blanchard Dam in Minnesota, staurolite is one of the index minerals that are used to estimate the temperature, depth, and pressure at which a rock undergoes metamorphism
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Kyanite
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Kyanite is a typically blue silicate mineral, commonly found in aluminium-rich metamorphic pegmatites and/or sedimentary rock. Kyanite in metamorphic rocks generally indicates pressures higher than four kilobars, kyanite is also known as disthene, rhaeticite and cyanite. Kyanite is a member of the series, which also includes the polymorph andalusite. Kyanite is strongly anisotropic, in that its hardness varies depending on its crystallographic direction, in kyanite, this anisotropism can be considered an identifying characteristic. At temperatures above 1100 °C kyanite decomposes into mullite and vitreous silica via the reaction,3 → 3Al2O3·2SiO2 + SiO2. This transformation results in an expansion and its name comes from the same origin as that of the color cyan, being derived from the Ancient Greek word κύανος. This is generally rendered into English as kyanos or kuanos and means dark blue, kyanite is used primarily in refractory and ceramic products, including porcelain plumbing fixtures and dishware. It is also used in electronics, electrical insulators and abrasives, kyanite has been used as a semiprecious gemstone, which may display cats eye chatoyancy, though this use is limited by its anisotropism and perfect cleavage. Color varieties include recently discovered orange kyanite from Tanzania, the orange color is due to inclusion of small amounts of manganese in the structure. Kyanite is one of the minerals that are used to estimate the temperature, depth. Kyanites elongated, columnar crystals are usually a good first indication of the mineral, associated minerals are useful as well, especially the presence of the polymorphs of staurolite, which occur frequently with kyanite. However, the most useful characteristic in identifying kyanite is its anisotropism, kyanite occurs in gneiss, schist, pegmatite, and quartz veins resulting from high pressure regional metamorphism of principally pelitic rocks. It occurs as detrital grains in sedimentary rocks and it occurs associated with staurolite, andalusite, sillimanite, talc, hornblende, gedrite, mullite and corundum. Kyanite occurs in Manhattan schist, formed under extreme pressure as a result of the two landmasses that formed supercontinent Pangaea
48.
Sillimanite
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Sillimanite is an aluminosilicate mineral with the chemical formula Al2SiO5. Sillimanite is named after the American chemist Benjamin Silliman and it was first described in 1824 for an occurrence in Chester, Middlesex County, Connecticut, US. Sillimanite is one of three aluminosilicate polymorphs, the two being andalusite and kyanite. A common variety of sillimanite is known as fibrolite, so named because the mineral appears like a bunch of fibres twisted together when viewed in section or even by the naked eye. Both the fibrous and traditional forms of sillimanite are common in metamorphosed sedimentary rocks and it is an index mineral indicating high temperature but variable pressure. Example rocks include gneiss and granulite and it occurs with andalusite, kyanite, potassium feldspar, almandine, cordierite, biotite and quartz in schist, gneiss, hornfels and also rarely in pegmatites. Natural sillimanite rocks cut into the shape and size are used mainly in glass industries. Sillimanite is the best raw material for the manufacture of high alumina refractories or 55-60% alumina bricks, but its use on large scale is not possible due to its fine grading and high cost. Dumortierite and mullite are similar species found in porcelain. Sillimanite has been found in Brandywine Springs, New Castle County and it was named by the State Legislature in 1977 as the state mineral of Delaware by suggestion the Delaware Mineralogical Society. List of minerals List of minerals named after people
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Petrology". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
"Schists". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911.
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