Note that our rather exact definition of what a mineral is excludes many of the

Question

Note that our rather exact definition of what a mineral is excludes many of the everyday meanings of the word "mineral". For instance, to some a "mineral resource" can be substance, such as stone, coal, petroleum, gravel, salt, or diamond, that is extracted from the ground and sold as a commodity. To a nutritionist, minerals are the inorganic elements found in foods, like iron and potassium and calcium, that are essential to life. In popular speech, any substance that is neither "animal" nor "vegetable" is "mineral". Discuss why any of these definitions do not necessarily meet the requirements of the definition used by geologists.

Explanation / Answer

In Geology the defination of a mineral is "it is a naturally occuring inorganic crystalline substance which has fixed structure and chemical composition".

In Geology we are dealing with how a mineral forms or from where it crystallises and in which crystal system it crystalise. But in other aspects of science they only deals with the use or the market price of the minerals.

In Geology we have a very strict defination for the minerals e.g. Olivine must crystlise in orthorhombic crystal system and must have (Mg,Fe)2SiO4 chemical formula. Because of the fixed chemical formula we can able to differentiate between the rocks. Except chemical formula mineral shows some didtinctive physical properties like colour, streak, hardness, cleavege etc. Also mineral shows some distinctive optical properties like interferance colour, extinction angle etc. Minerals can show these type of distinctive properties only because of there fixed chemical composition and structure. These properties of minerals helps us to differentiatate between differents rocks. As we can differentiate rocks we can tell about the tectonic condition and many more things.

So for a geologist mineralogy is everything.

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