Mineral Descriptions:
Native Elements, Sulfides, Halides, Sulfates
Oxides, Carbonates, Phosphates
Isolated, Double, Ring, and Chain Silicates
Sheet
and Framework Silicates
Becke
Lines
Interference
Colors
Interference
Figures
Biaxial Minerals
Petrology students, Dan Michaud, Rob Sents and Eric White hunt for blue calcite at Cascade Slide in the Adirondack Mountains.
Course Description - Introduction to the concepts of mineralogy and optical mineralogy. Topics include mineral systems, hand specimen and optical mineral identification techniques, crystal chemistry and crystallography. Laboratory study includes field work and common mineral identification including thin section analysis using a petrographic microscope.
Willsboro Wollastonite
Mine, NYThe lowermost rock unit at the Willsboro mine is anorthositic gneiss of the Westport Dome. At the mine, the anorthosite is overlain locally by a mafic gneiss a few tens of meters thick; this unit is absent further west. Above the mafic gneiss is the wollastonite ore, a coarse-grained (1-5 cm) rock. The ore consists of only three minerals: wollastonite, grandite garnet, and clinopyroxene. Thick skarn-like masses of grossular and pyroxene are found along the edges or occasionally within the unit. The mineralogy and geologic setting favor an origin by contact metamorphism of siliceous carbonate rocks at the time of anorthosite intrusion. (Bohlen et.al, 1992)
Identifying minerals at the Lewis wollastonite mine, Lewis, NY: Mary Roden-Tice, Stacey Clark, Melanie Young and Adam Mathews