Mineral Mystery

Report to the Museum

You have had a chance to examine the minerals found in the back of Muddy Lafoote’s car. Hopefully you were able to obtain some useful information that will help you determine each minerals identity.

While being interrogated, Muddy confessed to stealing specimens that he needed for his personal collection. He has a background in mineralogy and thinks that he might know the identity of the minerals. In fact, he has narrowed it down to 15 minerals. Here is the list that he came up with.

List:

Quartz

Calcite

Malachite

Gold

Magnetite

Galena

Muscovite mica

Corundum

Gypsum

Flourite

Biotite

Halite

Hematite

Limonite

Pyrite

The specimens that you looked at are in this list. It is your job now to use the evidence that you found to find the name of the mineral. Use the websites listed below (or others) to find info about each of these minerals, then compare that to what you found. You can recheck your results if you find a conflict.

• http://www.mii.org/commonminerals.html
• http://mineral.galleries.com/default.htm
• http://www.uky.edu/AS/Geology/webdogs/rocks/main.htm

Finally, write a one page paper to the museum telling them the identities of the minerals and how you know for sure that you are correct. (Saying it looks like gypsum is not enough) Then be sure to explain how you excluded the five other possibilities. This will be due on Tuesday.