Summary

In this section, you learned the following:

1. The basic chemistry involved with mineral formation
2. The most common mineral forming elements
3. Common techniques used to identify minerals
4. How to use these techniques to identify common minerals
5. What a mineralogist does and where they work

Synthesis

In this module we took a closer look at minerals. Minerals are very complex, and they form in a variety of ways and in a variety of settings. We examined some of the ways the mineralogist identifies minerals; some of the methods were very simple while others were a bit more complex (some of these include cleavage and reaction to acid). We can now understand why mineralogists need the firm foundation in chemistry and geology. In mineralogy, chemistry and geology are very tightly woven together. We saw just how those elements go into making up minerals. We stated earlier that elements make up minerals and minerals make up rocks, but we can also look at it in a different more familiar way: chocolate makes up chocolate chips and then the chocolate chips make up the cookie (along with the dough of course).  Now that we have an insight into minerals, we can move on to the next concept—ROCKS!