1. Mineral properties
Geology 101, Fall 2012

2. The properties of minerals are determined by their chemical composition and crystal habit; there are over 7000 unique minerals

3. Crystal habit
Crystal shapes are determined by local (nearest neighbor) intermolecular attractions

4. Cleavage
Cleavage, on the other hand, relies on the alignment of weak areas held together by only intermolecular forces through the whole crystal

5. Color (and luster)
Mineral color can be due to its intrinsic chemical composition (e.g., copper ores) or the crystal’s refractive properties or “impurities” such as a low concentration of metal ions not in the mineral’s chemical formula
Latter reason explains much of quartz’s color variability

6. Specific gravity
SG is the ratio of the mineral’s density to water’s density; it can be thought of as a “unitless” density.
SG measures how efficiently packed the atoms are in a crystal, and gives some indication of composition (e.g., the lead in galena).

7. Hardness
Hardness is an indication of molecule alignment in crystals (similar to cleavage) but also measures the strengths of the intermolecular forces

8. Strength ≠ Hardness
Carbon nanowire is one of the strongest (tensile) materials known, but is no harder than graphite

9. Sadly, minerals aren’t usually large enough to identify
So what techniques are available?
Optical mineralogy

10. Optical mineralogy
Relies on the behavior of polarized light transmitted through a very thin cross-section of a rock sample

11. X-ray crystallography
Basic premise: shoot X-rays at a crystal, look at the shadow pattern of atoms, determine structure and, eventually, identity