Found 2457 Rocks And Minerals Products.
Even if they don t know much about rocks, most folks can name at least one place they have encountered granite; but ask them about the rocks graywacke, gneiss, or rhyolite, and they may give you a funny look. That s because speckled, sparkly, and beautiful granite is common and easy to identify. In everyday life you ll find countertops, headstones, flooring even whole buildings made of granite. In the natural world it forms random boulders in fields and many of the planet s loftiest peaks. Commonness aside, no two granites are alike; it is a mysterious rock that crystallizes from magma miles and miles below the surface, far beyond the reach of human observation. The first title in the What s So Cool About Geology Series, What s So Great About Granite? brings this enigmatic rock to the light, exploring some of its mysteries with lively and lucid prose. Learn why some granite is pinkish while some is gray; why some granite crumbles in your hands while other granite can t be crushed by a tank; and why some granite is solid and unbroken for miles while some is riddled with cracks. Illustrated with crisp, stunning photographs and informative figures, What s So Great About Granite? is a must-have for anyone interested in one of the world s most fascinating rocks.
Price : $14.04
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Excerpted from the Introduction: THE SCIENCE OF MINERALOGY Mineralogy is the science of minerals. To the uninitiated, mineralogy can appear to be a very complicated subject. Many of the disciplines that form its core, such as chemistry, crystallography, physics and mathematics, can constitute forbidding barriers to understanding this fascinating natural science. This book endeavors to eliminate such barriers and to accompany the reader seeking to enter the world of minerals. The primary goals of this introduction are to illustrate some of the principal properties of minerals, present the modern tools used in their study, describe the natural environments in which minerals are formed, and explain the criteria by which minerals are classified. The main section of this book is an illustrated guide to 288 mineral species, all of them illustrated with unique photographs taken by nature photographer Roberto Appiani. Special thanks go to Dr. Federico Pezzotta, Curator of Mineralogy and Petrography at the Museum of Natural History in Milan, Italy, who wrote the section of this introduction that deals with the environments in which minerals are formed. Minerals throughout history Minerals are crystalline substances that are found in their natural state. Minerals are familiar to everyone, as they compose the rocks and mountains around us, as well as the sand on our beaches and the soil in our gardens. Many of the products we use every day are composed of minerals: toothpaste, for example, contains microcrystals of mica, calcite and fluorite, while detergents contain such mineral additives as calcite, dolomite, clays and zeolites. Minerals are components of meteorites and planets, while gemstones are nothing more than rough fragments of crystals, unusually transparent or colorful, that have been cut to emphasize their brilliance and transparency. Minerals have always had great importance in our world; from the dawn of history, each step in mankind's development can be measured by the use of metals. Today, minerals are the principal elements of steel and special alloys, and are integral to electronic and communication devices; they ace also used in the space industry and in the manufacture of a great many everyday items. The science of mineralogy came into being in relatively recent times. In order to understand the scientific criteria that governs its principles, one needs to trace the most important steps along its path over the centuries. The oldest use of minerals is related to art: primitive humans used natural pigments, hematite reds and manganese oxide blacks, to paint the walls of the caves in which they lived. About 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians were making objects from precious metals, using such colored minerals as malachite, lazurite and the emerald variety of beryl. The first texts to deal with mineralogical subjects were those of the Greek Theophrastus, around 370 B.C., and Pliny the Elder 400 years later. With Historio Naturalis, Pliny describes the perfect geometric shapes of crystals, laying the basis for the science of mineralogy. However, it is the German physician and scientist Georgius Agricola who is considered the father of mineralogy. In De Re Metallica ("On Metals"), first printed in 1556, Agricola describes the mining practices of his day in great detail, especially the techniques for exploiting and refining minerals and the procedures involved in the use of fusion to extract metals. Modern crystallography, the study of the forms that compose crystals, was born between the second half of the 1600s and the end of the 1700s, thanks to the contributions of Nicholas Steno, Carangeot and Romé de l'Isle. In 1801, Abbé René-Just Haüy discovered that minerals are composed of countless "molecules" that exactly reproduce the shape of their crystals, anticipating important discoveries that would only be confirmed a century later. During the 19th century, numerous scientists investigated the chemistry of minerals, among them Swedish chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius, who established the princip1es of modern mineral classification. The beginning of the 20th century marks a fundamental step in the history of mineralogy, with the dlscovecy of the structure of minerals by German physicist Max von Laue in 1912. Experiments performed using X-rays proved for the first time that minerals are composed of atoms precisely arranged according to exact rules. In the early 1960s, electronic microprobe analysis made possible the study of the chemical composition of minerals, and in comparatively short periods of time, enabled accurate chemical analysis of mineral fragments of even the smallest size (down to 4/100,000 of an inch or 0.001 mm). In the early 1970s, another highly advanced instrument, the transmission electron microscope, went into common use in laboratories and universities (at least those able to afford its high cost). Capable of magnifying millions of times, this tool opened a new frontier in mineralogy, allowing the direct observation of the atoms and the structures that compose minerals.
Price : $24.95
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The clay beneath our feet is crucial to the computer and space industries, bio-technology, publishing, and a wide range of manufacturing processes. The potter's wheel was the very first machine. With the invention of pottery came cooking and storage vessels, ceramics, the discovery of alcoholic beverages, the oven, clay tablets for the first written communication, irrigation for agriculture, vast trade networks, plumbing, sanitation, and an incredibly durable building material. Much of the Great Wall of China was made of fired clay bricks-a material that can stand for centuries. Now, Suzanne Staubach presents a lively look at how civilization was built on clay-from the first spark plugs to modern semi-conductors, satellite communications to surgical equipment. Clay is a fascinating, colorful look at how, from the primordial ooze to modern miracles, this most humble of substances continues to shape our world in ways limited only by the human imagination.
Price : $12.36
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A major reason for the lack of understanding of argillaceous rocks is that the key to understanding their history lies in their microfabric. Argillaceous Rock Atlas addresses this aspect by taking a systematic approach to the analysis of shale fabrics. This approach combines such techniques as scanning electron microscopy, x-radiography and thin-section petrography. Thus the book is amply illustrated with scanning electron and thin section photomicrographs and x-radiograms which show the salient features of shale at a variety of scales. A great portion of the book is devoted to case studies, supplemented by mineralogical and geochemical data, which demonstrate the utility of these techniques in the interpretation of depositional environments, diagenetic processes and possible economic significance of argillaceous rocks. Argillaceous Rock Atlas is a valuable and unique reference for students and researchers involved in the fields of sedimentology and stratigraphy, petrology, petroleum geology, hydrogeology and geochemistry.
Price : $207.78
$207.78
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Taking us from the imperial courts of ancient China to a squalid mine in Burma today, THE STONE OF HEAVEN-now in paperback-reveals for the first time the bizarre true story of Imperial Green Jade, one of the rarest stones in the world, more precious than diamonds, coveted for its life-extending powers and its aphrodisiac properties as well as for its astonishing beauty-a stone that has shaped the destiny of nations and changed the lives of all who have worn it.
Price : $5.80
$5.80
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This book gives an overview of the worldâs literature on analytical data and theoretical concepts of the regularities of rare earth elements (REE) in ultramafic and mafic rocks of different chemical and mineral compositions â mantle restites (including those composing mantle xenoliths in alkali basaltoids), highly magnesium hypabyssal rocks, plutonic rocks of mafic-ultramafic and ultramafic-mafic massifs, as well as in the main minerals composing these rocks â olivines, orthopyroxenes, clinopyroxenes, plagioclases, and amphiboles. Much attention is given to a comparative analysis of the REE distribution in rocks and minerals from different types of massifs, complexes, and provinces. Various aspects of their intragranular and intermineral distribution are considered, and data on the coefficients of their partition between minerals and their parental melts as well as between coexisting minerals are generalized. Probable schemes of REE isomorphism in rock-forming minerals are discussed. The generalization is based on the results of analyses of several thousands of rock samples and more than 2000 analyses of minerals, part of which was carried out with samples from authorâs collections. The book is intended for specialists in petrology and geochemistry of ultramafic, mafic, and other types of igneous rocks as well as students of geological departments of colleges and post-graduate students.
Price : $125.26
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Price : $60.00
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This volume expands and improves the AAPG 1978 classic, A Color Illustrated Guide to Carbonate Rock Constituents, Textures, Cements, and Porosities (AAPG Memoir 27). Carbonate petrography can be quite complicated. Changing assemblages of organisms through time, coupled with the randomness of thin-section cuts through complex shell forms, add to the difficulty of identifying skeletal grains. Furthermore, because many primary carbonate grains are composed of unstable minerals (especially aragonite and high-Mg calcite), diagenetic alteration commonly is quite extensive in carbonate rocks. The variability of inorganic and biogenic carbonate mineralogy through time, however, complicates prediction of patterns of diagenetic alteration.This book is designed to help deal with such challenges. It includes a wide variety of examples of commonly encountered skeletal and nonskeletal grains, cements, fabrics, and porosity types. It includes extensive new tables of age distributions, mineralogy, morphologic characteristics, environmental implications and keys to grain identification. It also encompasses a number of noncarbonate grains, that occur as accessory minerals in carbonate rocks or that may provide important biostratigraphic or paleoenvironmental information in carbonate strata. With this guide, students and other workers with little formal petrographic training should be able to examine thin sections or acetate peels under the microscope and interpret the main rock constituents and their depositional and diagenetic history.
Price : $149.54
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.cs162A16FE{} .cs40CD27CA{width:69pt;padding:0.75pt 0.75pt 0pt 0.75pt;border-top:none;border-right:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none} .cs2654AE3A{text-align:left;text-indent:0pt;margin:0pt 0pt 0pt 0pt} .cs566403DE{color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-family:Times New Roman; font-size:12pt; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; } .cs7FF4057C{width:342pt;padding:0.75pt 0.75pt 0pt 0.75pt;border-top:none;border-right:none;border-bottom:none;border-left:none} .cs2CAA79F6{color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-family:Arial; font-size:10pt; font-weight:normal; font-style:normal; } This is the ultimate photographic guide to the world of rocks and minerals, and how to build a collection, featuring over 800 stunning photographs and artworks. This is the ultimate visual encyclopedia of rocks and minerals, with a directory of over 300 specimens. It instructs the amateur geologist on how to identify and extract samples safely, clean and store specimens, and build and present their own unique collection.
Price : $19.99
$19.99
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Collectors have long admired uranium and thorium minerals for their brilliant colors, intense ultraviolet fluorescence, and rich variety of habits and associates. Radioactive minerals are also critically important as our source of nuclear energy. Understanding them is crucial to the safe disposal of radioactive waste. This book provides a systematic overview of the mineralogy of uranium and thorium, generously illustrated with nearly 200 color photos and electron micrographs of representative specimens. Includes an historical discussion of the discovery of radioactive elements and the development of uranium and thorium ore deposits, a discussion of the geochemical conditions that produce significant deposits, and a description of important localities, their geological setting and history. Major occurrences of interest to mineral collectors are arranged geographically. The minerals are arranged systematically, to emphasize how they fit into chemical groups, and for each group a few minerals are selected to illustrate their formation and general characteristics. With the resurgence of interest in nuclear power, this book is an invaluable guide for mineral collectors as well as nuclear scientists and engineers interested in radioactive deposits.
Price : $22.30
$22.30
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