Earth Sciences 1022A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Chemical Substance, Atom, Ductility
27 Apr 2019
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Document Summary
Minerals are the building blocks of rocks - the very foundations of the planet. Provide the ultimate raw materials for much of the stuff we use on a daily basis (if it can"t be grown, it"s has to be mined). Are the basis of life (many elements essential to living things ultimately come from minerals) Are the basis of our economy (especially true for canada) A mineral is a substance that: is a solid, is inorganic, has a definite chemical composition, is naturally occurring, has a crystalline internal structure. Minerals are made of elements joined together in a consistent and repeating pattern. An element is a pure chemical substance that cannot be broken down to other substances by normal chemical means. E. g. , hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, iron, zinc, lead, etc. The smallest particle of matter that retains the characteristics of an element is an atom. Atoms combine together in different ways to generate or comprise the ~90 naturally occurring elements.
