At the bottom of lakes such as (A) Waterton Lake in Canada fine-grained sediment collects. This sediment may someday become solid rock like that shown in (B) with tiny horizontal layers called laminations.
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(A) Marcus Milling, American Geological Institute, and (B) Martin Miller, University of Oregon. Both images courtesy of Earth Science World Imagebank
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The
Fall 2010 issue of The Earth Scientist, focuses on rocks and minerals, including articles on minerals and mining, the use of minerals in society, and rare earth minerals, and includes 3 posters!
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Spotting minerals is fun! There are many different types of minerals. Each has a different name and special traits. You can learn more about minerals by looking closely at them to understand their special
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This mineral is called quartz! Sometimes it looks white like milk but usually it looks clear like glass, sometimes with a little pink or gray tinge of color. You can find crystals of quartz in many different
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Mica minerals make some rocks sparkle! Look for them in your igneous and metamorphic rocks. Do they make your rocks sparkle? They break into flat plates because they have cleavage.
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This is a feldspar mineral! Look for it in igneous rocks where it looks like white or pink crystals. You might find it in other types of rocks as well.
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The mineral that is green is called olivine! Look for it in igneous and metamorphic rocks. In this picture, olivine is filling a hole in the igneous rock.
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There are at least 2000 minerals on Earth. That's a lot of minerals! But you don't need to know all of them to spot the minerals lurking in the rocks of your backyard. That is because only a small number
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Minerals are the building blocks of rocks. There are many different types of minerals. All of them are solid and all are made of atoms of elements. Minerals can grow even though they are not alive. Most
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