Use the two-sample figure. Sample A is glacier ice, and Sample B is coal from buried plant material. Which sample meets every requirement for a mineral?

The figure compares Sample A, a quartz crystal from granite, with Sample B, a piece of window glass made in a factory. Which sample is a mineral?

A figure shows Sample A, a brass screw, and Sample B, a native copper nugget from bedrock. Which sample is a mineral?

The figure compares Sample A, a sugar crystal from a kitchen, with Sample B, halite crystals from an evaporite bed. Which sample is a mineral?

Sample A is a diamond crystal from kimberlite, and Sample B is a pearl grown inside an oyster. Which sample meets the geologic definition of a mineral?

A figure shows Sample A, a concrete chip from a sidewalk, and Sample B, calcite crystals lining a limestone fracture. Which sample is a mineral?

Sample A is a gypsum crystal from a desert playa, and Sample B is a plastic bead molded in a lab. Which sample qualifies as a mineral?

A halite crystal is grown in a beaker by evaporating salt water in a classroom. It is solid, inorganic, crystalline, and NaCl. Which mineral requirement does it fail?

Pure spring water is natural, inorganic, and has a definite composition, H₂O. Which mineral requirement does it fail?

Geologists classify opal as a mineraloid, not a mineral. Which mineral requirement does opal fail?

A pearl forms inside an oyster from layers of calcium carbonate. Which requirement of the high school mineral definition does it fail?

Steel is made in a furnace by mixing iron with varying amounts of carbon. Besides being human-made, which other mineral requirement does steel fail?

Two bodies of the same magma cool at different rates: one deep underground for thousands of years and one at the surface in days. What does the slow cooling produce?

In a shallow desert basin, salty water evaporates until ions can no longer stay dissolved. What mineral-forming process occurs?

Hot water moves through fractures, dissolves metals, then cools near the surface. What deposit is most likely to form in the cracks?

Shale is buried, heated, and squeezed without melting; new mica and garnet crystals grow from atoms already in the rock. What formation route is described?

Lava chills so quickly that atoms cannot organize into crystals before it solidifies. What material is most likely produced?

Water dripping in a cave leaves calcite behind drop by drop as CO₂ escapes and water evaporates. What is growing?

The figure shows a repeating cubic arrangement of sodium and chlorine ions in halite. Which property does this arrangement most directly explain?

Use the atomic-arrangement figure. Which sample has the internal structure required of a mineral?

The figure shows mica built from stacked atomic sheets with weak bonding between sheets. Which physical property is best explained by that structure?

A figure compares diamond's 3-D carbon network with graphite's stacked carbon sheets. Why can the two minerals have very different hardness?

The figure shows two silica tetrahedra. In each one, a silicon atom (A) is bonded to four oxygen atoms. What does the atom at C show about how tetrahedra join to build silicate minerals such as feldspar?

Olivine is an island silicate with separate silica tetrahedra. What holds those isolated tetrahedra together in the crystal?

Quartz and feldspar are framework silicates. What atomic arrangement makes them frameworks?