Republic of the Philippines

Department of Education
REGION I
SCHOOLS DIVISION OF CANDON CITY

11
Earth Science

Quarter 1 – Module 2
Rock-Forming Minerals

Prepared by:

Elsa B. Biswelan
TEACHER III

Module in Earth Science 1

 What is this? Foreword

This module is one of the learning modalities indicated in

the Learning Continuity Plan of DepEd to make learning happen

amidst the pandemic.

This module has cotents similar to the lessons delivered by the teacher in

an online platform. It is also congruent with the discussions of the teacher via

recorded lesson, and forms the same with the assessment indicated in the learning

activity sheets.

For clarity, it makes use of icons that indicate the parts of the module. These

icons mark the stage where the student is in when he makes use of this module.

The students are advised to ask further questions from the teacher for

guidance and clearer understanding.

It is hoped that this module serves its purpose to ensure that learning still

takes place.

HAPPY Learning 

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What to see? Parts and Icons used

Objectives: The MELCs with codes are indicated here

Guide Questions (Formative Assessment): Questions that will be

answered after the student finishes the module are written here. An
activity can also be indicated here to assess what students know.

Discussion: The topic is presented here in the simplest manner

possible. The discussion must be aligned to the MELCs and must
point out details on how the formative assessment can be answered.

Examples: Illustrative examples are indicated here to further explain

what is being discussed. At most three examples are written here.

Exercises: Exercises arranged in order of difficulty are indicated

here. The exercises have 1 item/set each for easy, average,
challenging and enrichment.

Answer Key: This provides the key answers to the exercises given.
The format of the words are inverted

References: The references in Chicago format are listed, as lifted

from DMOS.

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 Lesson

3 Rock-Forming Minerals

Objectives
MELC: identify common rock-forming minerals using their physical
and chemical properties. Code: S11ES-Ib-5

Guide Questions (Formative Assessment)

1. What are common Rock-Forming Minerals?
2. What are the physical and chemical properties of minerals?

Discussion
Rocks are made up of substances called minerals. Any naturally
occurring substance with a definite chemical composition is called
a mineral.
All rocks are formed in the earth’s lithosphere, which includes the Earth’s crust and
the top part of its mantle, where partially molten rock called magma flows very
slowly under the crust. Some rocks are formed when magma gets close to the
surface and slowly cools. Some of the red hot magma breaks through the earth’s
crust to form fiery volcanoes, releasing lava to cool quickly on the surface or
even underwater. Other rocks form as a result of the weathering of older rocks and
erosion, creating layers of sediments, which are eventually buried under more
sediments and changed by heat and pressure. Some rocks are even formed from
the remains of living things.
Elements found naturally in their uncombined form are also minerals. Most
minerals in rocks are compounds with one or more metal elements together with
the elements oxygen and silicon. The color , shapes and textures of the minerlas

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in rocks tell us what they are made of how they were formed, as well as providing
clues about the past.

What are the different physical and chemical properties of minerals?

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Identification of Minerals

Geologists rely on several simple tests to identify minerals. These tests are
based on a mineral’s physical and chemical properties, which are crystal form,
luster, hardness, cleavage, fracture, streak, color, texture, density, specific
gravity, and special properties. It is usually best to use a combination of tests
instead of just one to identify minerals.

Crystal form

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Some minerals form such distinct crystal shapes that they are immediately
recognizable. Halite—common table salt—always forms perfect cubes. Quartz
crystals, with their double-pointed ends and six-sided crystals, are also readily
recognized. However, as you learned earlier in this section, perfect crystals are
not always formed, so identification based only on crystal form is rare.

Physical Properties of Minerals

Physical properties are useful when working in the field, where there is usually no
access to complex analytical techniques. Although a particular mineral has
different forms, the fundamental physical properties are still the same. Useful
physical properties to identify a mineral include color, streak, luster, specific
gravity, hardness, cleavage, tenacity, and crystal habit.

Color

One of the most noticeable characteristics of a mineral is its color. Color is

sometimes caused by the presence of trace elements or compounds within a
mineral. For example, quartz occurs in a variety of colors, as shown in Figure
4.10. These different colors are the result of different trace elements in the quartz
samples. Red jasper, purple amethyst, and orange citrine contain different

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amounts and forms of iron. Rose quartz contains manganese or titanium.
However, the appearance of milky quartz is caused by the numerous bubbles of
gas and liquid trapped within the crystal. In general, color is one of the least
reliable clues of a mineral’s identity.

Luster is the relative differences in the opacity and transparency of a mineral as

light is reflected on its surface. This describes the 'sparkles' of the mineral
surfaces.

The way that a mineral reflects light from its surface is called luster. There are
two types of luster — metallic luster and nonmetallic luster. Silver, gold, copper,
and galena have shiny surfaces that reflect light, like the chrome trim on cars.
Thus, they are said to have a metallic luster. Not all metallic minerals are metals.
If their surfaces have shiny appearances like metals, they are considered to have
a metallic luster. Sphalerite, for example, is a mineral with a metallic luster that is
not a metal.

Minerals with nonmetallic lusters, such as calcite, gypsum, sulfur, and quartz,
do not shine like metals. Nonmetallic lusters might be described as dull, pearly,
waxy, silky, or earthy. Differences in luster, shown in Figure 4.6, are caused by
differences in the chemical compositions of minerals. Describing the luster of
nonmetallic minerals is a subjective process. For example, a mineral that
appears waxy to one person might not appear waxy to another. Using luster to
identify a mineral should usually be used in combination with other physical
characteristics.

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Hardness

One of the most useful and reliable tests for identifying minerals is hardness.
Hardness is a measure of how easily a mineral can be scratched. German
geologist Friedrich Mohs developed a scale by which an unknown mineral’s
hardness can be compared to the known hardness of ten minerals. The minerals
in the Mohs scale of mineral hardness were selected because they are easily
recognized and, with the exception of diamond, readily found in nature.

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Talc is one of the softest minerals and can be scratched by a fingernail;
therefore, talc represents 1 on the Mohs scale of hardness. In contrast, diamond
is so hard that it can be used as a sharpener and cutting tool, so diamond
represents 10 on the Mohs scale of hardness. The scale, shown in Table 4.2, is
used in the following way: a mineral that can be scratched by your fingernail has
a hardness equal to or less than 2. A mineral that cannot be scratched by your
fingernail and cannot scratch glass has a hardness value between 5.5 and 2.5.
Finally, a mineral that scratches glass has a hardness greater than 5.5. Using
other common objects, such as those listed in the table, can help you determine
a more precise hardness and provide you with more information with which to
identify an unknown mineral. Sometimes more than one mineral is present in a
sample. If this is the case, it is a good idea to test more than one area of the
sample. This way, you can be sure that you are testing the hardness of the
mineral you are studying. Figure 4.7 shows two minerals that have different
hardness values.

Cleavage and fracture

Atomic arrangement also determines how a mineral will break. Minerals break
along planes where atomic bonding is weak. A mineral that splits relatively easily
and evenly along one or more flat planes is said to have cleavage. To identify a
mineral according to its cleavage, geologists count the number of cleaved planes
and study the angle or angles between them. For example, mica has perfect
cleavage in one direction. It breaks in sheets because of weak atomic bonds.

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Halite, shown in Figure 4.8, has cubic cleavage, which means that it breaks in
three directions along planes of weak atomic attraction.

Streak

A mineral rubbed across an unglazed porcelain plate will sometimes leave a

colored powdered streak on the surface of the plate. Streak is the color of a
mineral when it is broken up and powdered. The streak of a nonmetallic mineral
is usually white. Streak is most useful in identifying metallic minerals. Sometimes,
a metallic mineral’s streak does not match its external color, as shown in Figure
4.9. For example, the mineral hematite occurs in two different forms, resulting in
two distinctly different appearances. Hematite that forms from weathering and
exposure to air and water is a rusty red color and has an earthy feel. Hematite
that forms from crystallization of magma is silver and metallic in appearance.
However, both forms make a reddish brown streak when tested. The streak test
can be used only on minerals that are softer than a porcelain plate. This is
another reason why streak cannot be used to identify all minerals.

Specific gravity is the ratio of the weight of the mineral to the weight of the
water with an equal volume.

Chemical Properties of Minerals

All minerals have a certain arrangement of elements in their crystal structure.

They can be represented by a chemical formula, which presents the proportions
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of atoms that constitute them. For example, the mineral quartz has a chemical
formula SiO2

Its crystal structure is a continuous framework of silicon-oxygen tetrahedra.The

chemical properties of minerals depend on their chemical formula and crystal
structure. Solubility and melting point are chemical properties commonly used to
describe a mineral.

Solubility refers the ability of a substance to dissolve in a solvent at a specified

temperature. For example, biotite, a mineral commonly found in igneous rocks, is
soluble in both acid and base solutions. The dissolution releases the loosely-
bound potassium ions in the mineral.

Melting point refers to the temperature at which solid turns into liquid. Minerals
composed of atoms that are tightly bonded within the crystal structure have high
melting points. For example, quartz melts above 1670°C.

In the laboratory, the composition and crystal structure of minerals can be

analyzed through chemical and instrumental analysis.

Crystallographic techniques such as X-ray diffraction are performed to

determine the crystal structure of the mineral.

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Special properties
Several special properties of minerals can also be used for identification
purposes. Some of these properties are magnetism, striations, double refraction,
effervescence with hydrochloric acid, and fluorescence, shown in Figure 4.3.

For example, Iceland spar is a form of calcite that exhibits double refraction. The
arrangement of atoms in this type of calcite causes light to be bent in two
directions when it passes through the mineral. The refraction of the single ray of
light into two rays creates the appearance of two images.

Texture

Texture describes how a mineral feels to the touch. This, like luster, is subjective.
Therefore, texture is often used in combination with other tests to identify a
mineral. The texture of a mineral might be described as smooth, rough, ragged,
greasy, or soapy. For example, fluorite, shown in Figure 4.11, has a smooth
texture, while the texture of talc, shown in Figure 4.6, is greasy.

Density and specific gravity

Sometimes, two minerals of the same size have different weights. Differences in
weight are the result of differences in density, which is defined as mass per unit
of volume.

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If you had a sample of gold and a sample of pyrite of the same size, the gold
would have greater weight because it is more dense. Density reflects the atomic
mass and structure of a mineral. Because density is not dependent on the size or
shape of a mineral, it is a useful identification tool. Often, however, differences in
density are too small to be distinguished by lifting different minerals. Thus, for
accurate mineral identification, density must be measured. The most common
measure of density used by geologists is specific gravity, which is the ratio of
the mass of a substance to the mass of an equal volume of water at 4°C. For
example, the specific gravity of pyrite is 5.2. The specific gravity of pure gold is
19.3.

Examples

Common Rock-Forming Minerals

Although about 3000 minerals occur in Earth’s crust, only about 30 of these are
common. Eight to ten of these minerals are referred to as rock-forming minerals
because they make up most of the rocks in Earth’s crust. They are primarily
composed of the eight most common elements in Earth’s crust. This is illustrated
in Table 4.1.

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The most common rock-forming minerals are; quartz, feldspar, mica, pyroxene,
amphibole, and olivine. All of the following silicate minerals, except for quartz, are
mineral groups.

Quartz. It is a glassy-looking hard substance with white streaks. Despite its

hardness, with a Mohs hardness of 7, it is quite brittle. Pure quartz is clear and
transparent. Colored varieties of quartz are due to elemental impurities built into
its lattice. The grains of quartz, in general, are irregular in shape.

Feldspar has a chemical composition of Xal(1-2) Si (3-2) O8 , where X is K, Ca,

or Na. It is quite hard with a Mohs hardness of 6. It is a light-colored material,
usually white, but they can have lighter shades of red or green. It has a glassy
luster. In rocks, feldspar forms rectangular crystals that break along flat faces.

Mica is any group of hydrous potassium aluminum silicate minerals. The most
common examples are clear muscovite and black biotite. Mica is soft, with Mohs
hardness ranging from 2 to 2.5. It is easily identified by its perfect cleavage,
reducing it to thin smooth flakes. Its shine is responsible for the flashes of light in
rocks such as granite and slate.

Pyroxene minerals have a general composition of XY (Al, Si)2 O6, where X is

Ca or Mg and Y is either Mg, Fe, or Al.

Augite is the most common of this group. It has a glassy luster with streaks of
white, light green, or light brown. It is generally black in color and has stubby
prismatic crystals. Its key feature is its two cleavages at around 90°.

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Amphibole has a dark color with a Mohs hardness ranging from 5 to 6.
Hornblende is the most common amphibole. It has a glassy luster and an opaque
characteristic. Its crystals are very long and very thin.

Olivine is a silicate mineral with a general chemical composition of (Mg, Fe)2

SO4, but calcium, manganese, and nickel can be substituted for magnesium and
iron. It is known for its distinct olive-green color and commonly used in the
gemstone industry as peridot. It is a glassy looking and transparent substance
that is almost as hard as quartz. Its crystals have a granular shape.

Minerals from magma

Molten material that forms and accumulates below Earth’s surface is called
magma. Magma is less dense than the surrounding solid rock, so it can rise
upward into cooler layers of Earth’s interior. Here, the magma cools and
crystallizes. The type and number of elements present in the magma determine
which minerals will form. The rate at which the magma cools determines the size
of the mineral crystals. If the magma cools slowly within Earth’s heated interior,
the atoms have time to arrange themselves into large crystals. If the magma
reaches Earth’s surface, comes in contact with air or water, and cools quickly,
the atoms do not have time to arrange themselves into large crystals. Thus, small
crystals form from rapidly cooling magma, and large crystals form from slowly
cooling magma. The mineral crystals in the granite shown in Figure 4.4 are the
result of cooling magma.

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Minerals from solutions

Minerals are often dissolved in water. For example, the salts that are dissolved in
ocean water make it salty. When a liquid becomes full of a dissolved substance
and it can dissolve no more of that substance, the liquid is saturated. If the
solution then becomes overfilled, it is called supersaturated and conditions are
right for minerals to form. At this point, individual atoms bond together and
mineral crystals precipitate, which means that they form into solids from the
solution.

Minerals also crystallize when the solution in which they are dissolved
evaporates. You might have experienced this if you have ever gone swimming in
the ocean. As the water evaporated off your skin, the salts were left behind as
mineral crystals. Minerals that form from the evaporation of liquid are called
evaporites. The rock salt in Figure 4.4 was formed from evaporation.

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Key Points
 A mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic, solid material that has a fixed
structure and a definite chemical composition.

 Minerals can be identified based on their physical and chemical

properties.

 Useful physical properties to identify a mineral include color, streak, luster,

specific gravity, hardness, cleavage, tenacity, and crystal habit.

 The chemical properties of minerals depend on their chemical formula and

crystal structure.

 Solubility and melting point are chemical properties commonly used to

describe a mineral.

 The most common rock-forming minerals are quartz, feldspar, mica,

pyroxene, amphibole, and olivine.

 The most reliable way to identify a mineral is by using a combination of

several tests.

 A crystal is a solid in which the atoms are arranged in repeating patterns.

 Minerals form from magma or from supersaturated solutions.

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 Exercises # 1

Multiple Choice
Direction: Choose the letter of the correct answer and write it in
blank provided.
_____1. It is a solid, inorganic, naturally occurring substance with a fixed
structure and a definite composition.
A. rock B. magma C. salt D. mineral
_____2. It is the ability of a mineral to resist scratches.
A. luster B. hardness C. cleavage D. crystal habit
_____3. It describes how the mineral sparkles in light.
A. luster B. hardness C. cleavage D. crystal habit
_____4. Why does mica peel into thin sheets?
A. due to cleavage C. due to its chemical composition
B. due to its luster D. due to its color
_____5. Which of the following belong to mica?
A. hornblende and augite C. muscovite and biotite
B. amphibole and hornblende D. pyroxene and augite
_____6. Which is an amphibole?
A. muscovite C. pyroxen B. biotite D. hornblende
_____7. How would you differentiate amphibole from olivine?
A. by crystal shape C. by luster
B. by basicity D. by specific gravity
_____8. Which of the following is the easiest way to differentiate mica from
quartz?
A. Measure their specific gravity C. Observe how they look like in the
dark.
B. Look at their overall shape. D. Observe how they are broken.
_____9. Which of the following mineral is almost as hard as quartz?
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 A. diamond B. feldspar C. amphibole D. mica
Sander found an unknown mineral that has not been reported before. He
observed the behavior of the mineral when he tried to cut and crush it.
______10. What is the most common rock-forming mineral?
A. Silicates B. feldspar C. amphibole D. mica

Exercises # 2

Easy! Essay

Direction: Choose the letter of the correct answer and write it in blank provided.
1. Silicates like quartz are among the Earth’s most important natural
resources. There would be no computers, phones, glass, or bricks. All of
these rely on silicate minerals as raw materials. What other minerals are
known to have important uses like silicates?

___________________________________________________________
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__________________________________

2. Is there a possibility for the physical characteristics of rock minerals to

change over time? Explain your answer.

___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
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___________________________________________________________
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___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
__________

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 Exercises # 3

Minerals in Common Products

Direction: Research on the different kinds of minerals found in common

products that you use every day.
1. Lipstick
_____________________________________________________________
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_________________________

2. glass
_____________________________________________________________
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_________________________

3. Toothpaste
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4. Table Salt
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_________________________

5. Laundry Powder Detergent

_____________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________
_________________________

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References
Baird, A. K., et al., 1976. Mineralogic and petrologic implications of Viking
geochemical results from Mars: Interim report, Science, 194, 1288–1293.

Blatt, H.; Middleton, G.; and Murray, R., 1972. Origin of Sedimentary Rocks.
Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 634p.

Carmichael, I. S. E.; Turner, F. J.; and Verhoogen, J., 1974. Igneous Petrology.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 739p.

Deer, W. A.; Howie, R. A.; and Zussman, J., 1962–63. Rock-Forming Minerals,
vols. 1–5. London: Longman.

Deer, W. A.; Howie, R. A.; and Zussman, J., 1966. An Introduction to the Rock-
Forming Minerals. London: Longman, 528p.

Ringwood, A. E., 1975. Composition and Petrology of the Earth's Mantle. New
York: McGraw-Hill, 618p.

Winkler, H. G. F., 1979. Petrogenesis of Metamorphic Rocks, 5th ed. New York:

Springer-Verlag, 348p.

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