Minerals & Mineral Properties
This mineral property describes how shiny a mineral appears.
What is luster?
Name the three major families of rocks.
What are igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks?
This layer of Earth is the thinnest and outermost layer.
What is the crust (lithosphere)?
This instrument records earthquake vibrations.
What is a seismograph?
Alfred Wegener proposed the Continental Drift Theory long before scientists understood plate tectonics. To support his idea, he used four major pieces of evidence.
Name and briefly explain all four pieces of evidence that Wegener used to support Continental Drift Theory.
This test examines the color of the powder a mineral leaves behind when rubbed on an unglazed tile.
What is a streak test?
This type of rock forms when magma cools and solidifies.
What is an igneous rock?
Alfred Wegener proposed this theory explaining that continents were once joined together.
What is Continental Drift Theory?
This scale measures the magnitude or strength of an earthquake.
What is the Richter Scale?
A mineral scratches glass but can be scratched by quartz. Its hardness is between these two minerals on the Mohs scale. What property is being tested?
What is hardness?
Sedimentary rocks form through these two processes that squeeze and glue sediments together.
What are compaction and cementation?
Name the supercontinent that Wegener believed existed millions of years ago.
What is Pangaea?
What type of plate boundary forms when two plates slide past one another?
What is a transform boundary?
Mica splits into smooth, flat sheets while quartz breaks into rough, jagged pieces. These are examples of these two properties.
What are cleavage and fracture?
A granite countertop is buried deep underground and exposed to intense heat and pressure for millions of years. What type of rock could it become?
What is a metamorphic rock (such as gneiss)?
Scientists used sonar, magnetometers, and deep-sea drilling to support this modern theory.
What is Plate Tectonic Theory?
Explain why volcanoes are commonly found near convergent and divergent plate boundaries.
What is because plate movement allows magma to rise to the surface and erupt?
A student finds a mineral that has a glassy luster, leaves a white streak, fractures instead of cleaving, and has a hardness of 7. Identify the mineral.
What is quartz?
A rock is weathered into sediments, compacted into a new rock, buried and changed by heat and pressure, then melted into magma. Name the sequence of rock types it became.
What is sedimentary → metamorphic → igneous?
Scientists discovered matching fossils in South America and Africa, similar rock layers across continents, and evidence of climate changes. What scientific idea did all of this evidence support?
What is continental drift (that continents were once connected)?
Two continental plates collide. No subduction occurs, but the crust crumples and folds upward over millions of years. What type of mountain forms, and at what boundary does this occur?
What is a fold mountain at a convergent boundary?