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Mineral
Inorganic, naturally occurring solids
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Rock
Attached assemblage of minerals
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Amorphous
without a clearly defined shape or form.
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Crystal form
repeated regular arrangement of specific elements in a solid
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Cleavage
a sharp division; a split.
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Moh's hardness scale
A scale used to measure the relative hardness of a mineral by its resistance to scratching.
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Ten minerals of the Mohs scale from 1 on the scale to 10:
talc, gypsum, calcite, fluorite, apatite, orthoclase, quartz, topaz, corundum, and diamond
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Conchoidal fracture
a fracture that does not follow any natural planes of separation
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Striations
linear furrows generated from fault movement
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Intrusive
aka plutonic; igneous rock formed from magma forced into older rocks at depths within the Earth's crust
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Extrustive
igneous volcanic rock formation in which hot magma from inside the Earth flows out (extrudes) onto the surface as lava or explodes violently into the atmosphere to fall back as pyroclastics or tuff.
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Phaneritic
size of matrix grains in the rock are large enough to be distinguished with the unaided eye
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Aphanitic
grains of a rock too small to be seen with the naked eye
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phenocryst
a relatively large and usually conspicuous crystal distinctly larger than the grains of the rock groundmass of an igneous rock
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groundmass
the finer grained mass of material in which larger grains, crystals or clasts are embedded
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Bowen's reaction series - high crystallization temp to low crystallization temp
olivine, pyroxene, amphibole, biotite (black mica) orthoclase, muscovite (white mica), quartz
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Wentworth Grain size scale - small to large
mud, silt, sand, gravel
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compaction
the process by which a sediment progressively loses its porosity due to the effects of loading.
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Cementation
hardening and welding of clastic sediments by the precipitation of mineral matter in the pore spaces
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Metamorphism
the change of minerals or geologic texture in pre-existing rocks
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Foliation
repetitive layering in metamorphic rocks.
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Regional metamorphism
metamorphism affecting rocks over an extensive area as a result of the large-scale action of heat and pressure.
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Contact metamorphism
metamorphism due to contact with or proximity to an igneous intrusion.
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