Describes a laboratory course in mineralogy offered for humanities majors. Discusses the course's topics, requirements, and structure. (ML)

Describes the characteristics of rare earth elements. Details the physical chemistry of rare earths. Reviews the history of rare earth chemistry and mineralogy. Discusses the mineralogy and crystallography of the formation of rare earth laden minerals found in the earth's crust. Characterizes the geologic history of rare earth elements. (CW)

Describes the use of Tinker Toys to construct three dimensional models of crystals useful in illustrating many concepts of crystallography. Space lattices representing all of the Bravais types can be constructed. Also discusses the use of appropriate models to demonstrate the various symmetry operations. Bibliography. (LC)

Offers instructions and geometrical data for constructing solids of the enantiomorphous symmetry classes 233 and 432. Provides background information for each class and highlights symmetrical relationships and construction patterns. (ML)

Reviews changing concepts of the origins, properties, and classification of minerals. Emphasis is placed on developments of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, during which time the interwoven advances of chemistry, physics, crystallography, and high-temperature, high-pressure studies transformed mineralogy from a qualitative to a…

Outlined is a method for collecting and cutting oriented samples for microstructural analysis including handling the samples in the laboratory, cutting and orienting chips parallel to the motion plane, and cutting and orienting chips normal to Le and foliation. (CW)

Presented is an interpretation of the inward and outward growth and formation of plume textured geodes available from southern Brazil. Field occurrence, morphology of vesicles, growth history, closure of the agate shell, microscopic features, coherent reflection of light from convoluted surfaces, and accessory minerals of the inner cavity are…

Describes a technique for making reflectance measurements of opaque minerals in polished thin sections. Provides a calibration procedure, reflectance values for common opaque minerals, and a graph showing an example calibration curve of minimum shutter speed of opaque minerals versus published reflectance data. (RT)

Described is the sequence of topics, learning activities, materials and demonstrations for the course. It is stressed that students can learn these skills in less than 30 hours of instruction. (CW)

Describes a computer program which represents the first merger of an expert system and imaging technology into a tool to assist in learning mineral identification. Presents a discussion of the system's development, evaluation of effectiveness, and future modifications. (RT)

This unit, one of a series being developed for Australian secondary school science courses, consists of a teacher's guide, two student booklets, a test booklet, and a student workbook which also contains answers to questions raised in the student booklets, and a answer sheet containing comments on the answers to the questions in the test booklet.…

Described is a mineral identification program which uses a shell system for creating expert systems of a classification nature. Discusses identification of minerals in hand specimens, thin sections, and polished sections of rocks. (Author/CW)

Discusses the origin of the catastrophic event as to whether it was an episodic process or of extraterrestrial or endogenous origin. Develops a model of a volcanic mechanism to produce shocked quartz like those found in the Deccan basalts. (MVL)

Described is a set of FORTRAN programs, suitable for teaching and research purposes, that simulate contact and regional metamorphism. Equations, examples, program uses, and availability are discussed. (CW)

Presented are interdisciplinary activities that help students to identify minerals and to begin to understand the properties that make each one unique. The concept of individuality is emphasized. Included is a section on minerals and an explanation of their physical characteristics. (KR)