Answer Key - Assignment 10 Minerals and Rocks

Please answer the following questions:

1.  What is a mineral? (1 point)

Minerals are inorganic, naturally occurring solid substances with defined chemical and atomic structures

2.  Name 3 minerals.  (3 points)

(Any three) Feldspar, sulfur, galena, calcite, olivine, quartz, muscovite etc.

3. Name 3 characteristics geologists look for in identifying minerals. (3 points)

(Any three) color, hardness, luster, streak, cleavage/fracture

4. How are igneous rocks formed? (1 point)

Cooling and solidification of magma beneath the Earth's surface or lava at the surface

5. Name an extrusive igneous rock. (1 point)

basalt, rhyolite, obsidian, pumice etc.

6. Name an intrusive igneous rock. (1 point)

granite, pegmatite, gabbro etc.

7. How are clastic sedimentary rocks formed? (1 point)

Sedimentary rocks are formed when large deposits of accumulated sediment compact and cement together to form rock

8. Name a clastic sedimentary rock. (1 point)

conglomerate, breccia, sandstone, siltstone, shale etc.

9. Name a crystalline or chemically formed sedimentary rock. (1 point)

rock salt etc.

10. Name a bioclastic or organically formed sedimentary rock. (1 point)

Coquina sandstone, bituminous coal etc.

11. How are metamorphic rocks formed? (1 point)

By pressure and heat applied to existing rock

12. What rock does shale initially metamorphose into? (1 point)

Slate

13. What is foliation? (1 point)

Pressure that causes minerals in pre-existing rock to line up

14. What is the rock cycle? (1 point)

The rock cycle describes the process by which rocks change overtime from one rock family to the next.