GEO 1111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Volcanic Glass, Organic Compound, Covalent Bond

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Geology
• Course: GEO 1111
• Professor: Robert Jack Cornett

Document Summary

Most minerals owe their existence to biology (photosynthetic oxygenation of atmosphere) Minerals are: natural occurring, solid, ordered atomic arrangement, fixed chemical composition, inorganic. Diamond (yes not organized in sheets like graphite) Graphite (yes organized differently from diamonds, polymorph with diamond) Sugar (no it is an organic compound) Amber (no not ordered, no fixed chemical composition and organic) Given time, minerals will grow into large crystals. As they bump into each other during growth, it creates faces. If a liquid is quenched, crystals do not have time to nucleate and grow, a glass is generated (disorder) Hardness (how easily it is to scratch) O, si, al, fe, mg, ca, na and k make up 99% of the weight of earth"s crust. Over 4500 minerals on earth, 92% are silicates (feldspars, quartz, etc. ) The rock cycle involves: interactions within the geosphere at high temperature and pressure, interactions between the geosphere and other spheres.