Earth Sciences 1022A/B Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Muscovite, Calcite, Clastic Rock
1 Dec 2012
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Document Summary
Geology (study of earth) is important for energy and natural resources, solving environmental problems, building cities and highways, predicting and protecting against natural disasters like earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, landslides, floods. Uniformitarianism: fundamental principle the present is the key to the past . How long? geologic time is measured in billions of years. Earth system and rock cycle: earth is a dynamic planet (system) of interacting hydrosphere, atmosphere, biosphere, and geosphere (solid earth) Minerals are solid chemical compounds that combine to form rocks. Common minerals: natural solid compounds found commonly in earth"s crust. Silicates : most abundant, made of the silicon-oxygen tetrahedron (silica, (sio4)-4) bonded to various metallic cations. Nonferromagnesian (light) silicates muscovite tetrahedral sheets with perfect platy cleavage; feldspar - strongly bonded 3-d network of silica tetrahedra, k variety is called orthoclase and. Ca-na group is called plagioclase; quartz - made entirely of silica tetrahedra (sio2) covalently bonded, hard, has no cleavage.
