You have probably been waiting for the answers to Throwback Thursday #60's mineral quiz. Well, wait no more.... how'd you do?
Note: this quiz originated from Science Digest, but we got it from the KGMS (Kalamazoo Geological & Mineral Society). We've had a relationship with the KGMS, sharing a few field trips. They joined us at Braceville in the fall of 2020 and we visited the Cheney Limestone in Bellevue, MI with them last fall.
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1. B--Sometimes an entirely different color from that of the minoral. Black hematite, an ore of iron, makes red streak. Metallic minerals when powdered tend to make dark streaks and non-metallic ones, light streaks. Black mica, biotite, has a colorless streak.
2. C--Hexagonal--triagonal trapezohedral. Quartz may have several modifications in its crystals depending upon temperatures. The quarts we usually find is alpha quartz. The chemical substance SiO2 (quartz) may form a cubic-type crystal when crystallized at temperatures above 1470 C., but this is called cristobalite.
3. B--Outward appearance. The main groups of luster are metallic and nonmetallic, although a third group, submetallic, is sometimes used. The metallic luster is that of any typical metal, and such minerals are opaque. A number of different types of nonmetallic luster are found. Vitreous or glass luster is common. Other types of non metalltc luster appear greasy, resinous, pearly, and so on, a few have a silky luster.
4. A--Calcite. It has a hardness of 3 in the scale from 1 to 10. The hardness of the mineral tale is 1; gypsum, 2; and calcite, 3. An average fingernail is 2. A diamond is 10--the top of the scale.
5. A--The way in which a mineral breaks naturally and smoothly. Cleavage is always parallel to possible or actual crystal faces the mineral possesses. When a mineral with no natural cleavage lines is struck sharply with a hammer, the mineral fractures, showing many irregular surfaces. Cleavage is an important property for the identification of minerals. Cleavage lines which lie in the plane along which cleavage occurs may be repeated many times throughout the crystalline mineral.
6. 0--Gypsum. The water-free gypsum CaSO4 becomes CaSO4 2H20 by the process of hydration. Azurite may change to malachite. "Pyrite may change to llimonate by simple weathering. Pyrite is FeS2 and becomes Fe203 nH20--1imonate without the sulfur (S) present.
7. B-Green and blue. The copper ore azurite is blue and malachite, green. Both are carbonates of copper. Azurite has the chemical formula 2CuCO3, Cu(OH)2 and Malachite, CuC03 Cu(OH)2. The most important copper ore is chalcopyrite, a sulphide of copper and iron, CuFeS2.
8. C--Quartz. In Moh's hardness scale, quartz is 7 and apatite, 5. The scale doesn't measure exact, but only comparative hardness. A mineral higher on the list will scratch those below. The scale does not mean that Number 9 18 three times harder than Number 3. Window glass has a hardness of 5.
9. B-Twinning. A contact plane between the crystals may seem to be a prominent plane present in both crystals. This pairing is called twinning. Sometimes their repeated intergrowths appear on other planes, too. There are a number of special types of twinning such as spinel twinning; penetration twinning; which occurs in fluorite and pyrite; and repeated twinning, which makes a wheel-like pattern found in rutile.
10. A--Ilmenite. Ilmenite first came from the locality of the Ilmen Mountains in Russia. It is an iron titanate, FeTi03, generally black-or nearly so. The titanium content made it an undesirable iron ore, but since World War II, the titanium oxide extracted from the ore is used for a white pigment in paint. The reserves of this ore at Allgard Lake in Canada are great enough to supply the world. Cinnabar is the ore from which mercury is obtained in Spain and Italy. Wolframite is the important ore from which tungsten is obtained.
SCORE YOURSELF:
8.- 10 right --A solid score
4 - 7 right -- Minerals put you on your metal
0 - 3 right -- Explore another vein.
- From Science Digest via" Gems" - Kalamazoo Geo.. & Min.
