Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Metamorphic Rocks - Metamorphic rocks are formed by great heat and pressure. They
are generally found inside the Earth's crust where there is enough heat and pressure to
form the rocks. Metamorphic rocks are often made from other types of rock. For
example, shale, a sedimentary rock, can be changed, or metamorphosed, into a
metamorphic rock such as slate or gneiss. Other examples of metamorphic rocks include
marble, anthracite, soapstone, and schist.
Igneous Rocks - Igneous rocks are formed by volcanoes. When a volcano erupts, it
spews out hot molten rock called magma or lava. Eventually the magma will cool down
and harden, either when it reaches the Earth's surface or somewhere within the crust. This
hardened magma or lava is called igneous rock. Examples of igneous rocks include basalt
and granite.
Sedimentary Rocks - Sedimentary rocks are formed by years and years of sediment
compacting together and becoming hard. Generally, something like a stream or river will
carry lots of small pieces of rocks and minerals to a larger body of water. These pieces
will settle at the bottom and over a really long time (perhaps millions of years), they will
form into solid rock. Some examples of sedimentary rocks are shale, limestone, and
sandstone.
1. Melted rock or magma is sent to the earth's surface by a volcano. It cools and forms an
igneous rock.
2. Next the weather, or a river, and other events will slowly break up this rock into small pieces
of sediment.
3. As sediment builds up and hardens over years, a sedimentary rock is formed.
4. Slowly this sediment rock will get covered with other rocks and end up deep in the Earth's
crust.
5. When the pressure and heat get high enough, the sedimentary rock will metamorphose into a
metamorphic rock and the cycle will start over again.
One thing to note is that rocks don't need to follow this specific cycle. They may change from
one type to another and back again in practically any order.
Space Rocks
There are actually some rocks that come from space called meteorites. They may have different
elements or mineral make up than a typical earth rock. Typically they are made up mostly of
iron.
Interesting Facts about Rocks
The word "igneous" comes from the Latin word "ignis" which means "of fire."
Ores are rocks that include minerals that have important elements such as metals like
gold and silver.
Marble is a metamorphic rock formed when limestone is exposed to high heat and
pressure within the Earth.
A Land in Motion
Although we think of the land on Earth as being fixed and stable, it turns out that it
is constantly moving. This movement is way too slow for us to notice, however,
because it only moves between one to 6 inches per year. It takes millions of years
for the land to move a significant amount.
The Lithosphere
The part of the land that is moving is the Earth's surface called the lithosphere. The
lithosphere is made up of the Earth's crust and a part of the upper mantle. The
lithosphere moves in big chunks of land called tectonic plates. Some of these plates
are huge and cover entire continents.
Major and Minor Tectonic Plates
Most of the Earth is covered by seven major plates and another eight or so minor
plates. The seven major plates include the African, Antarctic, Eurasian, North
American, South American, India-Australian, and the Pacific plates. Some of the
minor plates include the Arabian, Caribbean, Nazca, and Scotia plates.
Here is a picture showing the major tectonic plates of the world.
Plate Boundaries
The movement of tectonic plates is most evident at the boundaries between the
plates. There are three main types of boundaries:
Scientists are now able to track the movement of tectonic plates using GPS.
What is a mineral?
Minerals are solid substances that occur naturally. They can be made from a single
element (like gold or copper) or from a combination of elements. The Earth is made
Fixed chemical structure - Specific minerals will always have the same
chemical formula. They will have the same combination of elements. Minerals
also generally are formed with a crystal structure.
Properties of Minerals
Different minerals are often defined by the set of properties described below:
Luster - Luster describes how well a mineral reflects light. Examples of luster
include glassy, metallic, brilliant, and dull.
Streak - Streak is the color of the mineral in powdered form. One way to
determine the streak is to rub the mineral across a rough hard surface like a
tile.
Specific Gravity (SG) - The specific gravity measures the density of the
mineral. It is measured in comparison to water where water has a specific
gravity of 1. For example, pyrite has a specific gravity of 5 and quartz has a
specific gravity of 2.7.
Types of Minerals
There are many different types of minerals, but they are often divided into two
groups: silicates and non-silicates. Silicates are minerals that contain silicon and
oxygen. Over 90% of the Earth's crust is made up of silicates. The rest of the
minerals are lumped into a group called non-silicates.
Some important non-silicate minerals include:
Halides - Halides contain a halogen element as the main element. Table salt
(NaCl) is a halide mineral made from the halogen chlorine (Cl) and sodium
(Na).
Oxides - Oxides are minerals where the main element is oxygen. Chromite is
an oxide mineral made from iron, chromium, and oxygen.
Native elements such as copper, gold, diamond, graphite, and sulfur can be thought
of as a third group of minerals.
Interesting Facts about Minerals
Around 99% of the minerals in the Earth's crust are made up of eight
elements including oxygen, silicon, aluminum, iron, calcium, sodium,
potassium, and magnesium.
Common minerals include quartz, feldspar, bauxite, cobalt, talc, and pyrite.
Some minerals have a different colored streak than the color of their body.
Certain minerals are needed by our bodies so we can grow healthy and
strong.
4.0 - Could shake your house as if a large truck were passing close by. Some people may
not notice.
6.0 - Stuff will fall off of shelves. Walls in some houses may crack and windows break.
Pretty much everyone near the center will feel this one.
7.0 - Weaker buildings will collapse and cracks will occur in bridges and on the street.
8.0 - Many buildings and bridges fall down. Large cracks in the earth.
The largest earthquake ever recorded in the world was in Chile in 1960. It measured a 9.6
on the Richter Scale. The largest in the US was a 9.2 magnitude in Alaska in 1964.
Movement of tectonic plates has formed large mountain ranges like the Himalayas and
the Andes.
Alaska is the most seismically active state and has more large earthquakes than
California.
Read
View History
Edit
Feedback
Felsic and mafic rocks, division of igneous rocks on the basis of their silica content. Chemical
analyses of the most abundant components in rocks usually are presented as oxides of the
elements; igneous rocks typically consist of approximately 12 major oxides totaling over 99
percent of the rock. Of the oxides, silica (SiO2) is usually the most abundant. Because of this
abundance and because most igneous minerals are silicates, silica content was used as a basis of
early classifications; it remains widely accepted today. Within this scheme, rocks are described as
felsic, intermediate, mafic, and ultramafic (in order of decreasing silica content).
In a widely accepted silica-content classification scheme, rocks with more than 65 percent silica
are called felsic; those with between 55 and 65 percent silica are intermediate; those with
between 45 and 55 percent silica are mafic; and those with less than 45 percent are ultramafic.
Compilations of many rock analyses show that rhyolite and granite are felsic, with an average
silica content of about 72 percent; syenite, diorite, and monzonite are intermediate, with an
average silica content of 59 percent; gabbro and basalt are mafic, with an average silica content
of 48 percent; and peridotite is an ultramafic rock, with an average of 41 percent silica. Although
there are complete gradations between the averages, rocks tend to cluster about the averages. In
general, the gradation from felsic to mafic corresponds to an increase in colour index (darkmineral percentage).
The fine-grained or glassy nature of many volcanic rocks makes a chemical classification such as
the felsic-mafic taxonomy very useful in distinguishing the different types. Silica content is
especially useful because the density and refractive index of natural glasses have been correlated
with silica percentage; this makes identification possible in the absence of chemical data. For
similar determinations, glasses can also be prepared in the laboratory from crystalline rocks.
The influence of silica content on the particular minerals that crystallize from a rock magma is a
complex interaction of several parameters, and it cannot be assumed that rocks with the same
silica content will have the same mineralogy. Silica saturation is a classification of minerals and
rocks as oversaturated, saturated, or undersaturated with respect to silica. Felsic rocks are
commonly oversaturated and contain free quartz (SiO2), intermediate rocks contain little or no
quartz or feldspathoids (undersaturated minerals), and mafic rocks may contain abundant
feldspathoids. This broad grouping on the basis of mineralogy related to silica content is used in
many modern classification schemes.
essential mineral
Tools
A Dictionary of Earth Sciences | 1999 | AILSA ALLABY and MICHAEL ALLABY | 401
words
A Dictionary of Earth Sciences 1999, originally published by Oxford University
Press 1999.
essential mineral A primary mineral whose presence in an igneous rock is essential to defining
the root name of that rock. For example, plagioclase and the pyroxene augite are essential to
defining the root name gabbro and hence are essential minerals. Where a primary mineral is
present but is not essential to the naming of the rock it is termed an accessory mineral.
Accessory mineral
Read
View History
Edit
Feedback
Accessory mineral, any mineral in an igneous rock not essential to the naming of the rock.
When it is present in small amounts, as is common, it is called a minor accessory. If the amount
is greater or is of special significance, the mineral is called a varietal, or characterizing,
accessory and may give a varietal name to the rock (e.g., the mineral biotite in biotite granite).
Accessory minerals characteristically are formed during the solidification of the rocks from the
magma; in contrast are secondary minerals, which form at a later time through processes such as
weathering by hydrothermal alteration. Common minor accessory minerals include topaz, zircon,
corundum, fluorite, garnet, monazite, rutile, magnetite, ilmenite, allanite, and tourmaline. Typical
varietal accessories include biotite, muscovite, amphibole, pyroxene, and olivine.