Minerals Chemistry Is Not Just a Dummy Concept

Minerals Chemistry Is Not Just a Dummy ConceptAs a lifelong student of the world's mineral's chemistry, I am amazed at how little my students know about minerals. They all seem to think they know more than I do, and I am tired of educating them. When I talk about minerals, they almost never get it. In fact, there are probably dozens of things that I have not taught them about minerals that will surprise you when I tell you where I learned most of these mineral facts.One of the most important things to remember is the difference between the molecular size of a mineral. For example, limestone is tiny, while quartz and gypsum are large. In a way, this should be no surprise. Clays are always made of very small grains, and silicates are always made of large grains. What is surprising, however, is that large grains can sometimes be smaller than those of other minerals, which means that the mineral can be several times smaller than the grain in the mineral.Even though many minerals have mas sive grains, their chemical bonding allows them to adhere to one another, and even to others minerals, even if they are all minute in size. There are dozens of examples of this phenomenon, and these facts are important because they allow minerals to become macroscopic, which is a fact that almost no mineral student understands. If you study minerals as they actually exist, however, you can understand what is happening. It is true that we cannot see minerals that are microscopic, but we still learn from microscopic studies.A very important fact that must be understood by any student of his or her own mineralogy is that every mineral is different. This means that there are literally hundreds of thousands of minerals that will appear on any planet in the universe. Now, some of these rocks can be a thousand times older than our sun, so the younger rocks will be about the same age as the rocks we mine from, but they will be totally different. The whole point of the mineral's chemistry is to learn about the differences, and then to have a basic understanding of how they are formed. As long as you learn the basics, you can still be a miner.It is also a great idea to learn about the physical properties of minerals in your own mineralogy. Knowing about the distribution of stresses and crystals helps a lot, as does knowing about the mineral's chemical makeup. Remember that none of these minerals is perfect, and they will all react with one another.The minerals you find in your favorite book on minerals science can be helpful, but they are not good enough for the reason that a book can only represent the materials found on one planet. Once you look at these rocks on other planets, you begin to see that you can't just look at the data, because the minerals on these other planets are different. You are suddenly forced to learn about the composition of the minerals on these other planets, because your book cannot do it.To me, this should not be such a difficult task, as the chemical composition of minerals is something we have already learned. In fact, your book could not have possible shown that the minerals I listed above are different, because they are all identical. It is like learning about what is on our moon, which would be impossible.Mineral Chemistry is the very basis of mining, and you must understand it if you want to succeed as a miner. If you don't know about mineral's chemistry, don't worry; there are plenty of books available that can teach you. However, in order to learn about minerals chemistry, you must dig around the planet and take advantage of what you can learn.