Practical Handbook of Earth Science
eBook - ePub

Practical Handbook of Earth Science

  1. 402 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

Practical Handbook of Earth Science

About this book

This self-contained handbook provides a carefully researched, compact source of key earth science information and data, logically sorted by subject matter, and then cross-referenced. Appealing to both experts and non-experts alike, the book presents earth science and environmental science as closely intertwined. It includes tables of the global distributions of fossil fuels, contrasted by tables of the distribution of non-fossil energy sources. Concise explanations cover the subject matters of geology, geophysics, oceans, atmosphere with attention to environmental implications and resources.

Frequently asked questions

Yes, you can cancel anytime from the Subscription tab in your account settings on the Perlego website. Your subscription will stay active until the end of your current billing period. Learn how to cancel your subscription.
No, books cannot be downloaded as external files, such as PDFs, for use outside of Perlego. However, you can download books within the Perlego app for offline reading on mobile or tablet. Learn more here.
Perlego offers two plans: Essential and Complete
  • Essential is ideal for learners and professionals who enjoy exploring a wide range of subjects. Access the Essential Library with 800,000+ trusted titles and best-sellers across business, personal growth, and the humanities. Includes unlimited reading time and Standard Read Aloud voice.
  • Complete: Perfect for advanced learners and researchers needing full, unrestricted access. Unlock 1.4M+ books across hundreds of subjects, including academic and specialized titles. The Complete Plan also includes advanced features like Premium Read Aloud and Research Assistant.
Both plans are available with monthly, semester, or annual billing cycles.
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, we’ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Yes! You can use the Perlego app on both iOS or Android devices to read anytime, anywhere — even offline. Perfect for commutes or when you’re on the go.
Please note we cannot support devices running on iOS 13 and Android 7 or earlier. Learn more about using the app.
Yes, you can access Practical Handbook of Earth Science by Jane H. Hodgkinson,Frank D. Stacey,Jane Hodgkinson,Frank Stacey in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Geology & Earth Sciences. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Section VI
Rocks and Minerals
Chapter 19
Mineral Types and Characteristics
19.1 DESCRIPTIVE TERMS
Various features of minerals are used to describe and identify them. In a hand specimen, diagnostic properties, defined in the following subsections (Tables 19.1 through 19.8 and 19.11 through 19.20), are colour, streak, Mohs hardness, fracture, cleavage, habit, lustre and specific gravity.
19.1.1 Colour of Mineral in Hand Specimen
As the word implies, a hand specimen of rock or mineral is typically of a size that will fit in the hand. To be useful, it must have a freshly broken surface that exposes unweathered grains. Colour is simply a general description of light reflected from the surface, which is often different from the colour seen in unpolarised transmitted light (in thin-section under a microscope).
19.1.2 Mohs Hardness
The scale proposed in 1812 by the mineralogist Friedrich Mohs is a relative scale of scratch resistance of minerals judged by the fact that harder materials visibly scratch softer ones in hand specimens. Type specimens are used to specify the hardness scale from 1 (softest) to 10 (hardest) (Table 19.1) and common, readily available materials are generally used (Table 19.2).
TABLE 19.1 THE MOHS HARDNESS SCALE
Mohs Hardness
Index Mineral
1
Talc
2
Gypsum
3
Calcite
4
Fluorite
5
Apatite
6
Orthoclase feldspar
7
Quartz
8
Topaz
9
Corundum
10
Diamond
TABLE 19.2 COMMON ITEMS USED FOR TESTING HARDNESS
Hardness
Material
2–3
Finger nail
3
Copper coin
5–6
Knife blade
6
Broken glass
7
Steel file
19.1.3 Streak
If a mineral specimen is scratched on an unglazed porcelain plate (‘streak plate’), the colour of the resulting fine powder is its ‘streak’, which may be different from both the colours in reflected light and in ...

Table of contents

  1. Title Page
  2. Copyright Page
  3. Table of Contents
  4. Preface
  5. Authors
  6. Section I: Notation and Units
  7. Section II: The Building Blocks: Elements to Planets
  8. Section III: Global Geophysics
  9. Section IV: Major Subdivisions of the Earth: Structures and Properties
  10. Section V: Geological Activity: The Restless Earth
  11. Section VI: Rocks and Minerals
  12. Section VII: Resources
  13. References
  14. Index