Introduction To Mineralogy Download
Portia Paswaters
The PDF (Portable Document Format) versions of the lecture notes are optimized for printing. All page breaks should occur correctly. If your web browser has the proper plug-in installed, clicking on the PDF will bring the file into your web browser from which you can then print the notes. If the plug-ins are not installed, your web browser will either attempt to download the PDF files or offer to send you to the Adobe web site to download the plug-ins for your browser. If you choose to download the PDF format lecture notes you will still need the free Adobe Reader to view and print the files. This and further information about the browser plug-ins can be obtained by clicking on the icon below.
PDF File* Uniaxial Minerals, Uniaxial Indicatrix, Optic Sign, & Ray Path* PDF File* Interference Phenomena, Compensation and Optic Sign*
PDF File* Biaxial Minerals*
PDF File* Silicate Structures, Structural Formula, Neso-, Cyclo-, and Soro- Silicates* PDF File* Inosilicates (Pyroxenes and Amphiboles)* PDF File* Phyllosilicates (Micas, Chlorite, Talc, & Serpentine)* PDF File* Weathering and Clay Minerals* PDF File* Tectosilicates, Carbonates, Oxides, & Accessory Minerals* PDF File* Return to Topics List Links to Mineralogy Web Sites of Interest
- The Geochemical Earth Reference Model (GERM)
- U. North Carolina Atlas of Igneous & Metamorphic Rocks, Minerals, & Textures
- Mineralogy Database
- Mineral and Locality Database (Mindat.org)
- University of Bristol - Optical Mineralogy
- Dr. Olaf Medenbach's optical mineralogy resource pages
- The Mineral Gallery
- How to make paper crystal models
This file can be opened with Kobo, Nook, Google Play Books, and any other reader that handles EPUB files. If using Amazon's Kindle please download the MOBI file instead. We recommend against using Adobe Digital Editions to view this volume as it displays the images poorly.
This book is an outgrowth of a workshop on teaching mineralogy held at Smith College in June 1996 and sponsored by a grant from the Division of Undergraduate Education, National Science Foundation (DUE-9554635). Seventy participants, from diverse institutional settings and from all academic ranks, met to explore common interests in improving instruction in mineralogy. At the workshop, participants took part as both instructors and as students. They had the opportunity to explore a variety of new instructional methods and materials and also to observe their colleagues as instructors. All were encouraged to test these activities in their own classrooms, to evaluate their effectiveness, to suggest changes to the authors, and to develop new and complementary exercises. The sourcebook before you is the product of this group effort.
Teaching mineralogy is both challenging and rewarding. Mineralogy is typically taught as the first pre-professional course in an undergraduate geology curriculum. The large amount of information and abstract nature of much of the content presents formidable barriers to learning for many students. In recent years, educational scholars have discovered a great deal about the ways in which students learn. Indeed, much of the discussion at the workshop was on student learning rather than on faculty teaching. Many felt we need to be more concerned about what students can do as scientists rather than just evaluating their performance on exams.
Mineralogy, like all sciences, is a changing and expanding field. As our knowledge base continues to grow, it is appropriate to reexamine regularly what we teach and how we teach in mineralogy courses. Exciting new advances in mineralogical research, stronger connections to cognate disciplines (e.g. geochemistry, geophysics, materials science), and increasing relevance of mineralogy to society (e.g. environmental geology, resource utilization) all must be effectively incorportated into modem mineralogy courses. Our search has lead us to believe that there is a convergence of the way we conduct our science and the way we teach it-and the common theme is discovery-basedexercises.
There is a national mandate to reform all science education (e.g. Shaping the Future, New Expectations for Undergraduate Education in Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology; NSF 96-139) and many in the mineralogical community are responding. New goals for science education identified in Shaping the Future call for coursework that is more meaningful and relevant for students in their professional training; opportunities for students to "be" scientific by simulating, replicating, or engaging true research activities; and for providing students with life- long learning skills for creative problem-solving, quantitative reasoning, clear writing andspeaking, and information and data gathering. To achieve these goals, while teaching the underlying principles and knowledge base of mineralogy, is the challenge we face. New teaching approaches that may help include collaborative learning, peer instruction, alternative assessments, and especially, use of discovery- and inquiry-based exercises. We can emphasize the relevance of our course material by showing connections with sub-disciplines in geology, cognate disciplines, and society in general.
Within this volume you will find numerous exercises that can be applied in the teaching of mineralogy and related courses. There are hands-on, experimental, theoretical, and analytical exercises. All have been written with the hope of optimizing student learning. At the workshop there was little interest in developing a "prescriptive" approach to mineralogy by making recommendations on a specific content that might be universally applied in mineralogy courses and curricula. We recognize that every student population will have different needs, every facultyvimember will have her or his own areas expertise, every department will have its own curricular needs, every institution will have its own resources, and every geographic setting will provide unique educational opportunities. The exercises in this volume provide examples of innovative ways that mineralogy can be taught using a variety of materials and teaching techniques. We encourage you to use these activities in whatever ways will best serve your students. You may freely photocopy the exercises for class use, adopt these materials or adapt them to meet the special needs of your own course, and use these activities as models to help you develop your own new exercises.
However you use this book, please share your experiences with your colleagues and with the authors of the exercises. Being an effective teacher is not easy and we can all benefit from the experiences of others. If you would like to join an electronic mail list server discussion of mineralogy teaching, send a subscription request to jbr...@science.smith.edu.
We hope that the exercises in this volume will help you find ways to make your mineralogy teaching more successful. If we prompt you to modify your classes so that your students not only learn and retain more, but also have fun in the process, we will have achieved our goals.
John Brady, Dave Mogk, Dexter Perkins
June 1997
Abstract:Rare earths are used in the renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines, batteries, catalysts and electric cars. Current mining, processing and sustainability aspects have been described in this paper. Rare earth availability is undergoing a temporary decline due mainly to quotas being imposed by the Chinese government on export and action taken against illegal mining operations. The reduction in availability coupled with increasing demand has led to increased prices for rare earths. Although the prices have come down recently, this situation is likely to be volatile until material becomes available from new sources or formerly closed mines are reopened. Although the number of identified deposits in the world is close to a thousand, there are only a handful of actual operating mines. Prominent currently operating mines are Bayan Obo in China, Mountain Pass in the US and recently opened Mount Weld in Australia. The major contributor to the total greenhouse gas (GHG) footprint of rare earth processing is hydrochloric acid (ca. 38%), followed by steam use (32%) and electricity (12%). Life cycle based water and energy consumption is significantly higher compared with other metals.Keywords: rare earth; mining; mineralogy; recycling; life cycle assessment
We believe in making science open and accessible. We don't think you should have to wade through decades of dusty publications to find the right structure. Neither should you have to try your luck with dodgy data files downloaded from online archives. That's why we've provided a carefully-curated collection of our own: converting arcane data into precious 3D artworks. And for the most-effective - and elegant - presentation, we've combined these into a single, beautifully-designed application. Science as art; knowledge as power: indulge your passion.
Already have CrystalMaker? A limited version of CrystalViewer is already included in CrystalMaker X, as part of that program's Library Browser interface. The standalone CrystalViewer 11 application is designed to provide a simpler way of understanding pre-existing structure models, without the complexity of a powerful crystal/molecular modelling program - and is ideal for introductory teaching classes in mineralogy and solid-state chemistry.
eebf2c3492