Geology Question

Description

All of our elements/minerals (including our own bodies – God made us from stardust) are made of minerals that were once part of stars (or the original Big Band). On average, one new star per year is born in our own galaxy. These are the natural processes that God used to create our planet.

Colossians 1:17 reminds us of God’s ongoing work of upholding and maintaining the creation. Our Christian story extends from the creation to the new creation as the “Big-Picture” of the world. This includes not only an understanding of the Biblical narrative but also a proper perspective of God’s creation and the laws that He created in this universe. It’s a story that is a counter-story to a worldwide of naturalism that views only nature as the reality of life.

1) What elements did you think formed in stars and what formed in the Big Bang?

2) What is your birthstone? 

3) What are the physical and chemical properties and where you could find this mineral on planet earth in terms of location, how it formed and the geologic setting. Use maps, pictures and diagrams. 

Session # 3 Lab: Mineral Properties & the Identification and Uses: 

Activity 3.5

Separate those with metallic luster from those with non-metallic luster. (HINT: If you think the sample is metallic, ask yourself if it looks like metal. If the answer is yes, it has metallic luster. If it does not look like metal to you, it just has a reflective surface and is probably non-metallic.) Record all your properties on the excel chart you will be making.

Procedure

Read Laboratory Chapter 3 from lab manual.

Watch the lab PowerPoint prior to performing the lab

Take the mineral samples from the kit and place them on newspaper or some protected surface.

Prepare a chart in EXCEL (not a pdf or Word file) that is similar to that in the lab manual. Identify the physical properties and name the minerals, based on the charts found on in your Lab Manual.

You will want to keep this Excel Chart Template you make as you will use it in the igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic labs, just changing the titles of the columns at the top of the chart. 

Your chart must be an EXCEL Document (not a pdf or Word file). It must have grid lines and be professional looking.

Place your answers on your Excel chart in the appropriate spaces. In the first column, put the specimen numbers that are attached to each mineral. Place them in correct numbering order: 1, 2,3 ,4 as the number that is attached to your mineral specimen.

Now identify the non-metallic minerals. There is more variety and, therefore, more options for identification with these. Record all your answers on your chart.

For each sample, fill in the physical properties on your chart at the top column headings . You will determine hardness, streak, luster, cleavage, color, and any other properties, then find the appropriate chart in your Lab Manual.

For ease of finding the correct chart, read the title carefully. Keep in mind that if the mineral scratches the glass plate, it is harder than glass (5.5) and if the glass scratches the mineral, the mineral is softer than glass (5.5).

To use these charts, you must determine the number of cleavage planes on the mineral. This is the most difficult of all of the diagnostic properties to see and identify. Make an attempt to count the cleavage but also pay close attention to the underlined descriptions in the column labeled “other”. Cleavage determination is not necessary to identify many minerals, but for feldspars, hornblende, and augite (minerals harder than 5.5 with white or no streak color), it is necessary.

Check the hardness of each by scratching the glass and using other hardness methods. Record your answers.

Find out the streak color by scratching the mineral on the white porcelain streak plate. Record your answers.

For most metallic minerals, hardness and streak, along with crystal shape, will be all you need to identify the mineral.