ROCKS

The rocks you see around you - the mountains, canyons & riverbeds, are all made of minerals. A rock is made up of 2 or more minerals. Think of a chocolate chip cookie as a rock. The cookie is made of flour, butter, sugar & chocolate. The cookie is like a rock and the flour, butter, sugar & chocolate are like minerals. You need minerals to make rocks, but you don't need rocks to make minerals. All rocks are made of minerals. For a LIST of ROCKS, check out Wikipedia's List of Rocks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rocks For some PHOTOGRAPHS of ROCKS, look here.

MINERALS

A mineral is composed of the same substance throughout.
If you were to cut a mineral sample, it would look the same throughout.
There are about 3000 different minerals in the world.
Minerals are made of chemicals - either a single chemical or a combination of chemicals.
There are 103 known chemical elements. Minerals are sorted into 8 groups. Some common examples have been listed for each.

• Native Elements ~ copper, silver, gold, nickel-iron, graphite, diamond
• Sulfides ~ sphalerite, chalcopyrite, galena, pyrite
• Halides ~ halite, fluorite
• Oxides & Hydroxides ~ corundum, hematite
• Nitrates, Carbonates, Borates ~ calcite, dolomite, malachite
• Sulfates, Chromates, Molybdates, Tungstates ~ celestite, barite, gypsum
• Phosphates, Arsenates, Vanadates ~ apatite, turquoise
• Silicates ~ quartz, almandine garnet, topaz, jadeite, talc, biotite mica

• For a LIST of MINERALS, check out Wikipedia's List of Minerals
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minerals_%28complete%29
• For some PHOTOGRAPHS of MINERALS, look here.