Chapter 1 Introduction to Geology
1.4 Minerals and Rocks
The rest of this chapter is devoted to a brief overview of a few of the important aspects of physical geology, starting with minerals and rocks. This is followed by a review of Earth’s internal structure and the processes of plate tectonics, and an explanation of geological time.
The Earth is made up of varying proportions of the 90 naturally occurring elements—hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, magnesium, silicon, iron, and so on. In most geological materials, these combine in various ways to make minerals. Minerals will be covered in some detail in Chapter 2, but here we will briefly touch on what minerals are, and how they are related to rocks.
A mineral is a naturally occurring combination of specific elements that are arranged in a particular repeating three-dimensional structure or .[1] The mineral is shown as an example in Figure 1.4.1.
In this case, atoms of sodium (Na: purple) alternate with atoms of chlorine (Cl: green) in all three dimensions, and the angles between the bonds are all 90°. Even in a tiny crystal, like the ones in your salt shaker, the lattices extend in all three directions for thousands of repetitions. Halite always has this composition and this structure.
| Note: Element symbols (e.g., Na and Cl) are used extensively in this book. In Appendix 1, you will find a list of the symbols and names of the elements common in minerals and a copy of the periodic table. Please use those resources if you are not familiar with the element symbols. |
There are thousands of minerals, although only a few dozen are mentioned in this book. In nature, minerals are found in rocks, and the vast majority of rocks are composed of at least a few different minerals. A close-up view of , a common rock, is shown in Figure 1.4.2. Although a hand-sized piece of granite may have thousands of individual mineral crystals in it, there are typically only a few different minerals, as shown here.
Rocks can form in a variety of ways. Igneous rocks form from (molten rock) that has either cooled slowly underground (e.g., to produce granite) or cooled quickly at the surface after a volcanic eruption (e.g., ). Sedimentary rocks, such as , form when the weathered products of other rocks accumulate at the surface and are then buried by other sediments. Metamorphic rocks form when either igneous or sedimentary rocks are heated and squeezed to the point where some of their minerals are unstable and new minerals form to create a different type of rock. An example is .
A critical point to remember is the difference between a mineral and a rock. A mineral is a pure substance with a specific composition and structure, while a rock is typically a mixture of several different minerals (although a few types of rock may include only one type of mineral). Examples of minerals are feldspar, quartz, mica, halite, calcite, and amphibole. Examples of rocks are granite, basalt, sandstone, limestone, and schist.
Key Takeaway: Know the difference between minerals and rocks!
If you are currently taking a geology course, you’ll likely be asked more than once to name a mineral or a rock that has specific characteristics or composition, or was formed in a specific environment. Please make sure that if you’re asked for a rock name that you don’t respond with a mineral name, and vice versa. Confusing minerals and rocks is one of the most common mistakes that geology students make.
Exercise 1.1 Find a piece of granite
The rock granite is very common in most parts of North America, and unless everything is currently covered with snow where you live, you should have no trouble finding a sample of it near you. The best places to look are pebbly ocean or lake beaches, a gravel bar of a creek or river, a gravel driveway, or somewhere where gravel has been used in landscaping. In Figure 1.4.3, taken on a beach, the granitic pebbles are the ones that are predominantly light-coloured with dark specks. The one in the very centre is a good example.
Select a sample of granite and, referring to Figure 1.4.2, see if you can identify some of the minerals in it. It may help to break it in half with a hammer to see a fresh surface, but be careful to protect your eyes if you do so. You should be able to see glassy-looking quartz, dull white plagioclase feldspar (and maybe pink potassium feldspar), and black hornblende or, in some cases, flaky black biotite mica (or both).
In addition to identifying the minerals in your granite, you might also try to describe the texture in terms of the range sizes of the mineral crystals (in millimetres) and the shapes of the crystals (some may be rectangular in outline, most will be irregular). Think about where your granite might have come from and how it got to where you found it.
See Appendix 3 for Exercise 1.1 answers.
Media Attributions
- Figure 1.4.1, 1.4.2, 1.4.3: © Steven Earle. CC BY.
- Terms in bold are defined in the glossary at the end of the book. ↵
The regular and repeating three-dimensional structure of a mineral.
Metals are critical for our technological age, but there are a lot of other not-so-shiny materials that are needed to facilitate our way of life. For everything made out of concrete or asphalt, we need sand and gravel. To make the cement that holds concrete together, we also need limestone. For the glass in our computer screens and for glass-sided buildings, we need silica sand plus sodium oxide (Na2O), sodium carbonate (Na2CO3), and calcium oxide (CaO). Potassium is an essential nutrient for farming in many areas, and for a wide range of applications (e.g., ceramics and many industrial processes), we also need various types of clay.
The best types of aggregate (sand and gravel) resources are those that have been sorted by streams, and in Canada the most abundant and accessible fluvial deposits are associated with glaciation. That doesn’t include till of course, because it has too much silt and clay, but it does include glaciofluvial outwash, which is present in thick deposits in many parts of the country, similar to the one shown in Figure 20.16. In a typical gravel pit, these materials are graded on-site according to size and then used in a wide range of applications from constructing huge concrete dams to filling children’s sandboxes. Sand is also used to make glass, but for most types of glass, it has to be at least 95% quartz (which the sandy layers shown in Figure 20.15 are definitely not), and for high-purity glass and the silicon wafers used for electronics, the source sand has to be over 98% quartz.
Approximately 80 million tonnes of concrete are used in Canada each year—a little over 2 tonnes per person. The cement used for concrete is made from approximately 80% calcite (CaCO3) and 20% clay. This mixture is heated to 1450°C to produce the required calcium silicate compounds (e.g., Ca2SiO4). The calcite typically comes from limestone quarries like the one on Texada Island, B.C. (Figure 20.16). Limestone is also used as the source material for many other products that require calcium compounds, including steel and glass, pulp and paper, and plaster products for construction.
Sodium is required for a wide range of industrial processes, and the most convenient source is sodium chloride (rock salt), which is mined from evaporite beds in various parts of Canada. The largest salt mine in the world is at Goderich, Ontario, where salt is recovered from the 100 m thick Silurian Salina Formation. The same formation is mined in the Windsor area. Rock salt is also used as a source of sodium and chlorine in the chemical industry to melt ice on roads, as part of the process of softening water, and as a seasoning. Under certain conditions, the mineral sylvite (KCl) accumulates in evaporite beds, and this rock is called potash. This happened across the Canadian prairies during the Devonian, creating the Prairie evaporite formation (Figure 6.17). Potassium is used as a crop fertilizer, and Canada is the world’s leading supplier, with most of that production coming from Saskatchewan.
Another evaporite mineral, gypsum (CaSO4.2H20), is the main component of plasterboard (drywall) that is widely used in the construction industry. One of the main mining areas for gypsum in Canada is in the Milford Station area of Nova Scotia, site of the world’s largest gypsum mine.
Rocks are quarried or mined for many different uses, such as building facades (Figure 20.17), countertops, stone floors, and headstones. In most of these cases, the favoured rock types are granitic rocks, slate, and marble. Quarried rock is also used in some applications where rounded gravel isn’t suitable, such as the ballast (road bed) for railways, where crushed angular rock is needed.
Exercise 20.3 Sources of important lighter metals
When we think of the manufacture of consumer products, plastics and the heavy metals (copper, iron, lead, zinc) easily come to mind, but we often forget about some of the lighter metals and non-metals that are important. Consider the following elements and determine their sources. Answers for all of these except magnesium are given above. See if you can figure out a likely mineral source of magnesium.
| Element | Source(s) |
|---|---|
| Silicon | |
| Calcium | |
| Sodium | |
| Potassium | |
| Magnesium |
See Appendix 3 for Exercise 20.3 answers.
