Mineralogy and Mineral Resources

Prerequisites: introductory geology or the equivalent, elementary college physics and chemistry, or the instructors permission. Minerals come in dazzling colors, amazing shapes and with interesting optical effects. But mineralogy is also an essential tool for the understanding of Earth evolution. Minerals represent fundamental building blocks of the Earth system and planetary bodies. Minerals form through geological and biological processes such as igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary from high to low temperatures, from the deep interior to the Earth’s surface and related to volcanism, tectonics, weathering, climate and life. Minerals are one of our most important sources of information on such processes through Earth’s history. Minerals also represent important natural resources and are fundamental to the global economy and modern technology as we know it. In this course, we will approach mineralogy from the standpoint of earth and environmental sciences, the study of mineralogy however is of interest to many other sciences including Material Sciences, Planetology, Archeology, Biology, Chemistry and Physics with most of the 20 Nobel Prizes awarded for research involving crystals being in these last fields. The goal of this class is to (1) understand the physical and chemical properties of minerals, (2) learn techniques of mineral identification with an emphasis on optical mineralogy, (3) understand the relationship between minerals and the broader geological context.