Clue 1 - Minerals - Intro
Mystery Detectives - Alien landing - Clue #1
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
9:22 AM
Remember your overall goal:
You need to identify your Mystery igneous rock to figure out the tectonic setting in which it formed.  
Knowing the tectonic setting will narrow the possible places that could be your mystery location.  
But to identify your rock, you must first identify the minerals within it.
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Partner(s):
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Visual cues in these interactive worksheets
Questions are in a blue fancy (serif) type or font.
● a blue circle marks a question that can only be answered while you are at the station.  
Major headers that tell you the main goal of each section are in orange.
Links are underlined in green.
Station 1-4:  How to recognize the minerals that make up most igneous rocks
There are thousands of different kinds of minerals, but only 7 of them make up most igneous rocks.  If you know these seven, you'll be able to recognize many igneous rocks.  
Common minerals that make up igneous rocks:
Click on the image to link to the interactive mineral photo gallery.
Photos of other minerals
John Betts
•  Plagioclase feldspar 
•  Orthoclase feldspar
•  Quartz
•  Mica
•  Amphibole
•  Pyroxene
• Olivine
What is a mineral?
Station 5:  How to recognize the minerals that make up most igneous rocks
There are thousands of different kinds of minerals, but only 7 of them make up most igneous rocks.  If you know these seven, you'll be able to recognize many igneous rocks.  
Station 6-9:  Characteristic properties of minerals
The characteristic properties of minerals are important to know about for three major reasons:
Minerals can be identified by type based on characteristic properties we can observe.
Igneous rocks contain minerals.  Igneous rocks are classified by the kinds of minerals they contain.  By identifying the minerals, it lets us identify the igneous rock.
Certain minerals form under certain conditions.  So minerals can give us clues about the conditions in which they formed such as temperature and pressure inside the Earth where we cannot go or see.
When we need materials with particular properties for a particular use, we extract these materials from minerals.