Mineral

A Mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic substance with a defined chemical composition and crystal structure.

• Context:
  • It can be a building blocks of rocks and are critical to various geological processes.
  • It can (often) have properties such as hardness, luster, color, and streak which are used for identification.
  • It can range from being a Native Element Mineral, like gold, or a Compound Mineral that is a combination of elements.
  • It can range from being an Abundant Minear, such as quartz, to being a Rare Mineral, like diamonds.
  • It can play a role in human society as sources of metals, gemstones, and other materials used in manufacturing and construction.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • Quartz (SiO₂) - One of the most common minerals, found in a wide range of rock types.
  • Feldspar - A group of silicate minerals that are the most abundant in the Earth's crust.
  • Calcite (CaCO₃) - A common mineral, often found in sedimentary rocks.
  • Diamond (C) - A precious gemstone consisting of a crystalline form of carbon.
  • Olivine - Common in peridotite and some types of gabbro.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Synthetic Substance. such as Plastics.
  • Organic Substances, such as: Coal or Petroleum.
  • a substance without defined chemical composition, such as: coal, petroleum, slag, or amber.
• See: Rock, Crystal Structure, Chemical Composition, Geology, Gemstone, Metals, Quartz, Feldspar, Calcite, Diamond.

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• See: Crystal Structure, Mineraloid, Phosphate Mineral, Geology, Mineralogy, Solid, Chemical Substance, Chemical Composition, Biogenic, Calcite, Organic Compound, Mellite.

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References

2023

• (Wikipedia, 2023) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/mineral Retrieved:2023-6-8.
  • In geology and mineralogy, a mineral or mineral species is, broadly speaking, a solid substance with a fairly well-defined chemical composition and a specific crystal structure that occurs naturally in pure form.

    The geological definition of mineral normally excludes compounds that occur only in living organisms. However, some minerals are often biogenic (such as calcite) or are organic compounds in the sense of chemistry (such as mellite). Moreover, living organisms often synthesize inorganic minerals (such as hydroxylapatite) that also occur in rocks.

    The concept of mineral is distinct from rock, which is any bulk solid geologic material that is relatively homogeneous at a large enough scale. A rock may consist of one type of mineral, or may be an aggregate of two or more different types of minerals, spacially segregated into distinct phases.

    Some natural solid substances without a definite crystalline structure, such as opal or obsidian, are more properly called mineraloids. If a chemical compound occurs naturally with different crystal structures, each structure is considered a different mineral species. Thus, for example, quartz and stishovite are two different minerals consisting of the same compound, silicon dioxide.

    The International Mineralogical Association (IMA) is the generally recognized standard body for the definition and nomenclature of mineral species. , the IMA recognizes 5,941 official mineral species.

    The chemical composition of a named mineral species may vary somewhat by the inclusion of small amounts of impurities. Specific varieties of a species sometimes have conventional or official names of their own. For example, amethyst is a purple variety of the mineral species quartz. Some mineral species can have variable proportions of two or more chemical elements that occupy equivalent positions in the mineral's structure; for example, the formula of mackinawite is given as , meaning , where x is a variable number between 0 and 9. Sometimes a mineral with variable composition is split into separate species, more or less arbitrarily, forming a mineral group; that is the case of the silicates , the olivine group.

    Besides the essential chemical composition and crystal structure, the description of a mineral species usually includes its common physical properties such as habit, hardness, lustre, diaphaneity, colour, streak, tenacity, cleavage, fracture, parting, specific gravity, magnetism, fluorescence, radioactivity, as well as its taste or smell and its reaction to acid.

    Minerals are classified by key chemical constituents; the two dominant systems are the Dana classification and the Strunz classification. Silicate minerals comprise approximately 90% of the Earth's crust. Other important mineral groups include the native elements, sulfides, oxides, halides, carbonates, sulfates, and phosphates.

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