GEOL 101 Chapter 3: Chapter 3 – Patterns in Nature
Document Summary
Chapter 3 patterns in nature: minerals 09/28/2014 (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) (cid:1) 4,000 minerals that have been identified on earth. Minerals are the building blocks of our planet: industrial minerals serve as the raw materials for manufacturing chemicals, concrete, wallboard, understanding of earth"s materials depends on understanding the minerals that make them up. Glass vs minerals mineral is crystalline, glass is not. 3. 3 beauty in patterns: crystals and their structure: Crystal: single, continuous piece of crystalline solid, typically bound by flat surfaces that grow naturally as the mineral forms: crystal faces: flat surfaces. Crystals come in a variety of shapes, such as: cubes, trapezoids, pyramids, octahedrons, hexagonal columns, blades, needles, columns, obelisks. Crystals have no effect on health or mood, despite the popular beliefs/phenomena on that they do. Diffraction patterns: basis for defining the specific arrangement of atoms in crystals. This arrangement defines the crystal structure of a mineral.