Field identification of minerals is limited by the protability and maintenance of equipment. Accuracy of identification increases with facilities and thus increases in a hierarchy of outcrop to camp to analytical laboratory. This entry is confined to outcrop and camp methods. A field worker commonly has on the outcrop a pick, a pocket knife with a magnetized blade, a 10 power hand lens, and a plastic dropping vial of hydrochloric acid. Mineral identification in such circumstances is an educated guess based on physical properties, occurrence, and association. The physical properties that can be checked are habit, color, luster, tarnish, cleavage, and hardness, relative to a knife. Habit refers to the typical physical appearance of a mineral, e.g., millerite is often in hairlike fibers, leucite in trapezohedral crystals, and erthyrite in a powder or scales.
Mineral occurrence is the natural environment in which minerals are found. Some minerals and elements have very limited occurrence,...
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© 1988 Van Nostrand Reinhold Company Inc.
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Fisher, I.S. (1988). Mineral identification, classical field methods . In: General Geology. Encyclopedia of Earth Science. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30844-X_77
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-30844-X_77
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