Unit 4 Minerals

Minerals: What are They? Their Composition and

Formation

Minerals are essential:

• they’re every manufactured product

• They’re essential to good health (vitamins and minerals)

• Knowledge of minerals enables us to understand earth’s processes

What is the first question the game asks?????

MI-1 Performance Tasks

1. Determine if a substance is a mineral using the 5 characteristics of a mineral.

2. List the elements that make-up most of the Earth’s crust.

3. Describe 3 processes that form minerals.

Earth: open or closed system?

All the water, air, and materials we have is all we will have.

Despite losing H atoms out into space or a stray meteorite coming in, Earth is essentially a

CLOSED planet.

What is a mineral? Pg. 96

List the five characteristics that make a substance a mineral:

• _____________________• _____________________• _____________________• _____________________• _____________________

Occurs naturally

SolidDefinite chemical formula

Orderly (crystal) arrangement of atoms

Inorganic (never alive)

Periodic table of the Elements

What is the #1 most abundant element in the Earth’s crust?

?????

• Most minerals are …a) Compounds?

b) Elements?

c) Mixtures?

Give examples:

Salt (NaCl)

calcite (CaCO3)

Sand (SO2)

??????

• Native minerals are composed of just one, single element.

• List three examples:

1. ____________________

2. ____________________

3._____________________

GoldCopper

Diamond *

* Is diamond an element on the Periodic Table??

The Rock

• So… what is a ROCK by

definition?

A group of one or more minerals

bound together

in varying quantities

#44 granite

How many different color are in granite?

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=minerals+and+you+movie&FORM=VIRE5#view=detail&mid=48F27A2510D232EF271848F27A2510D232EF2718

Except…..

• Limestone #58, which is made

of only ONE mineral:

# 3 calcite.

So, is it a Mineral or Not???

1. Ruby

2. Mercury

3. Concrete

4. Salt

5. Cubic zirconia

6. Sugar

7. Ice

8. Pearl

YES

NO, liquid

No, man-made

YES NO, synthetic

NO, organic

YES

Mineraloid, no crystalline structure

Mineral Box Activities

Part I: Choose 5 ways to organize minerals into different groups…

Part II: Write down the mineral number that 1. makes glass ____

2. Smells like rotten eggs ____

3. Fools gold ____

4. Is magnetic ____

5. Is used in face powder ____

6. Used in pencils ____

7. Tastes salty? ____

8. Is heavy like lead? _____

9. Dried blood-red color? ____

10. Peels into thin sheets? ____

#7 quartz#31 sulfur#22 pyrite#13 magnetite#1 talc

graphite#18 halite#11 galena

hematite#23/24 mica

• At the lab tables, decide upon 5 ways to group minerals with your partner (one partner should help research, while the other records these activities on paper. Switch partners after each activity!

• Use the white board to share this with your peers!

How would you group minerals?