Minerals can be identified by crystal habit, how their crystals grow and appear in rocks
Crystak habits are a great way to identify minerals. For example, the L.A. history museum has a beautfiul collection of minerals showing every type of crystal habit.
Calcite crystals show an interesting property called birefringence, meaning they polarize light into two wave components vibrating at right angles to each other. As the two light waves pass through the crystal, they travel at different velocities and are separated by refraction into two different travel paths. In other words, the crystal produces a double image of objects viewed through it
Calcite crystals polarize light. This is quite interesting because they contain a property called birefringence that vibrates two light waves throguh the crystal
artz
Quartz is a beautiful mineral that comes from the Earth. Quartz is also a form of a sedimentary rock because it is ressitant to weathering because of its strong framework.
ron and magnesium in the olivine family indicate a solid solution forming a compositional series within the mineral group which can form crystals of all iron as one end member and all mixtures of iron and magnesium in between to all magnesium at the other end member.
I find it quite interesting that iron and mageniusm are the main compontents of the olivine mineral. These combined create the minerals on olivine.
Streams carry salt ions into the lake from the surrounding mountains. With no other outlet, the water in the lake evaporates and the concentration of salt increases until saturation is reached and the minerals precipitate out as sediments.
With heavy amounts of salt the water evaporates because it has nowhere else to go. This is interesting because salt is a mineral found in lakes and without an outlet it can evaporate.