GEOL 110 Final Exam Review Material

  • Silicate Mineral Classes – be able to identify the classes of silicate minerals and give examples of major minerals in each.
  • Optics – You should be up on all of the light paths and diagnostic tools associated with petrographic microscopy
  • Specific Mineral Groups – we have spent a lot of time on specific mineral groups (feldspars for instance). You should know these well – for example the feldspars can be divided into 2 series that differ in K, Na, Ca compositions – If I give you a ternary plot you could fill it in for this group and tell me the end-members. Though I do not expect you to memorize (for example) the 6 mineral phases of the plagioclase feldspar series, you should know they trend between Albite and Anorthite as a function of Na and Ca content, are framework silicates and know the alkali feldspars can have exsolution lamellae that indicate cooler conditions or re-equilibration. Expect several questions covering some detail on the minerals we have discussed – interpret their structure, chemistry and interpret what conditions their presence indicates.
  • Minerals / Mineral groups to know:
  • Feldspars (plagioclase and alkali feldspars), feldspathoids, pyroxenes, amphiboles, olivines, clays, micas, quartzes, calcite group, sulfates, halides, serpentines, zeolites, garnets, sulfides, oxides, chlorite, staurolite, aluminosilicates
  • Should have a sense of their structure, chemistry, diagnostic features, and depositional/formational environment(example – what does the presence of gypsum then halite tell you?)
  • Bowen’s reaction series and explanation for how magma becomes rock (partial, or fractional, crystallization)
  • Igneous rocks – know the vocabulary and how to use different plots to assign rock type – assigned by texture, composition,
  • Equilibrium – we have talked about energy of minerals and how that is affected by the conditions they are put in (solution/melt composition, P/T conditions, etc.) – you should know how to read a phase diagram and use it to figure out a mineral composition from a melt and what a miscibility gap is responsible for.
  • Weathering  be able to describe physical and chemical weathering in detail. Different ways to physically weather something, what controls chemical weathering (solubility, different kinds of reactions – dissolution, hydrolysis, acid/base, oxidation)
  • Sedimentary rocks – put together weathering, transport, lithification, diagenesis and ID major types of sedimentary rocks.
  • Ore deposits – a sense of concentrating metals by some chemical mechanism (trap) and definition of some of the major types of ore deposits (Cu-porpyry, SEDEX, Epithermal, MVT, etc.)
  • Also a sense of mineral importance in environmental problems such as acid mine drainage
  • Metamorphism – Agents of change – P, T, fluids, stress/strain; types of metamorphism and the tectonic environments associated with these changes (P/T, fluids, etc.)
  • Metamorphic reactions – know the major types of metamorphic reactions – solid-solid phase transformation, solid-solid, dehydration/ hydration, volatization/devolatization (esp. carbonation/decarbonation)
  • Thermodynamics and phase diagrams you should be able to read a phase diagram and use it to figure out P/T conditions given a set of minerals coexisting in a rock
  • Metamorphic facies  you should know these and have a sense of the predominant minerals indicative of those facies/grades
  • Microorganisms and the different roles they play in mineral weathering and precipitation, metabolisms and how reduced and oxidized forms are combined for energy, different kinds of major organisms affecting iron and sulfur.
  • Meteorite impact minerals – minerals indicative of a meteorite impact and why
  • Mantle composition – should have some idea of the composition of the earth’s mantle and core!  Important mantle phases  olive, pyroxene, spinel, perovskite, magneso-wustite (minor stishovite)