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Emerald
Coal
• Emeralds are the green variety of the
mineral beryl.
• Coal forms from plant material which has
been deeply buried and placed under high
pressure and temperatures.
• Emeralds are precious stones used for
jewellery.
• Although emeralds are hard, they can break relatively easily
due to imperfections in the crystals such as trapped water,
gas, or crystals of other minerals.
• Coal is not directly related to charcoal. Coal
forms over millions of years underground while charcoal
forms relatively quickly from burning wood. However, both
are black, burn and are made of carbon.
• There is no single rock that is known to contain emerald,
so there is no rock known as ‘emerald ore’.
• Coal is technically not a rock as it is made almost entirely
of organic material. However it is classified as sedimentary
because it is found as layers between other sedimentary
rocks like shale and mudstone.
Quartz
• Coal cannot be turned into diamonds.
• Quartz is a mineral made of silicon dioxide.
It is one of the most common minerals in
the Earth’s crust .
• Quartz can be found in many colours
including white (milky quartz), pink (rose quartz), black
(smoky quartz), yellow (citrine) and purple (amethyst).
Pure quartz is colourless and transparent.
• Quartz is one of the most useful minerals on Earth. It is used
in electronic products and to make glass.
• Quartz is a main ingredient of granite but only small
amounts are found in the rock diorite.
• Quartz cannot naturally be made into large slabs or blocks
as quartz is a mineral (an ingredient of a rock). However,
quartz‑rich rocks like sandstone can be made into blocks.
• Many rocks contain quartz, but there is no single rock type
called ‘quartz ore’.
Granite
• Granite is an igneous rock. It forms when
magma cools slowly deep underground.
• A prominent feature of granite is its large
crystal size. These individual crystals are
visible to the naked eye.
• The main mineral ingredients of granite are quartz, feldspar
(which is usually white or pink but can also be green) and
mica (black and shiny).
• Granite is a very hard rock so is difficult to break down. It is
often found in the form of large rocky outcrops such as big
marble-like ‘tors’ in the landscape.
• Granite cannot be directly created from another rock—
it cannot be ‘crafted’ from diorite and quartz, nor from
cobblestone or from smelting gravel.
• Coal is not found in the form of ore.
Sand
• Sand comes from the breakdown of rocks.
• Sand grains are rock and mineral particles
less than 2 mm across. Sand is most
commonly made of the mineral quartz.
• The surface of the Earth has roughly
7.5 x 1018 grains of sand, or seven quintillion, five hundred
quadrillion grains.
• When grains of sand are deeply buried for a very long time
they can form the rock sandstone.
• Sand is not an ingredient of TNT. In fact, there are no solid
ingredients in the manufacturing of TNT.
Charcoal
• Charcoal is not a rock.
• Charcoal consists of carbon and ash.
It is what is left after wood is burned without
oxygen.
• Charcoal was traditionally used by blacksmiths for making
iron/metal implements, as fuel for cooking and by artists
to draw.
• Sometimes charcoal is consumed as a dietary supplement.
• Charcoal is not directly related to coal—they form through
different processes.
Image credits:
Granite, coal, quartz, emerald: Geoscience Australia (Chris Fitzgerald)
Sand: Simon A. Eugster, Wikimedia Commons
Charcoal: Annelieke B, Wikimedia Commons
© Commonwealth of Australia (Geoscience Australia) 2016. This material is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence. GA16 9649 | GeoCat 90690