GEO 306 Lab 3
Not-So-Simple Structures: Oxides, Sulfides, and a Couple of Orthosilicates
To download an electronic copy of this lab (Adobe PDF File), Click Here. This laboratory exercise is designed to give the students an introduction to Oxide and Sulfide minerals in hand sample as well as an understanding of their structures, along with an introduction to Orthosilicate minerals. It is a very good idea for the students to read up on these minerals in the textbook before coming to the lab so that they will have some background knowledge of these minerals before they get there. The mineral identification portion of the lab exercise took much longer last week than I had anticipated, so to avoid having this happen again, I am hoping that you will take this advice and read up on these minerals before you come to lab on Friday. This way, you will have an idea of what you are looking at when you walk in to lab rather than running blind.
This lab, much like the previous two, is broken down into two main sections: Hand Sample Identification, and Mineral Chemistry and Structure. In the first section, the students are required to identify 20 hand samples based on their physical properties and what we have learned in class about mineralogy. The list of minerals given on the front page of this Lab Exercise includes ONLY those minerals which have not been seen in the lab thus far. Any minerals from previous lab exercises are not on this list, and ARE FAIR GAME!!! So, as the weeks go on, more and more minerals will be added to your quickly growing repertoire, and you must be able to think back to things you have already seen and apply them in these new exercises.
For the section on the structure and chemistry of these minerals, the students are given several structural models to study, and are asked a series of questions geared toward making the students work together toward a fuller understanding of the structure and chemistry of these minerals. Some questions are easier than others, and some require a lot of thought and discussion. All in all, this exercise should give the students a good grasp of Oxide, Sulfide, and a couple of Orthosilicate minerals, both macroscopically and microscopically.
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