Download Minerals, Rocks, and the Crust

Minerals, Rocks, and the Crust
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The nuclear ________________ that took place inside of stars, and the dramatic
explosions that end their lives as supernovae, both form and distribute heavier
_____________ such as iron, carbon, magnesium and ____________________. The
elements that came together to form minerals that created, first planetismials, and
subsequently, the Earth’s crust. Rocks are generally composed of interlocked
______________ of a variety of minerals. The types of minerals present determine the
rock type, and each rock type can be classified according to the type of mineral crystals it
contains, with the exception of types such as volcanic glass, where its elements are not
organized into ordered crystal __________________.
Earth’s crust is composed primarily of two types of igneous rocks. The darker and
denser of these two is referred to as ____________, for its elevated content of
magnesium and iron. Mafic rocks include dark volcanic and igneous rocks such as basalt
and ___________. Felsic rocks are also igneous, but are ____________________ and
less dense because of their higher proportion of lighter elements silicon and
_____________________. Mafic rocks compose _________________ crust; felsic rocks
are the main constituents of continental crust. The silicate minerals of Earth’s crust can
be organized and classified according to the amount of connectedness between the
____________ _____________________ that compose these minerals. The basic unit of
silica, the silica tetrahedron, is a pyramid-shaped molecule of silicon and oxygen that can
form the backbone of crustal minerals such as pyroxene and amphibole. These tetrahedral
can link together to form chains, ___________________, sheets, and three-d structures.
This system of crystal classification has a beauty, regularity, and order that is all its own,
and can even be related to the sequence of crystallization of minerals from a
___________ or magma. This sequence of crystallization is known as ______________’s
Reaction series, and the general message of this series is that the less ordered silicates,
that is, those with less ordered or even isolates silica tetrahedral such as olivine, are the
_____________ to form in a cooling magma.
As the magma continues to cool and the ___________ moves to completion,
successively more ordered types of silicate minerals form, from chain silicates to doublechain silicates to sheet silicates (micas), to finally; tectosilicates such as _____________.
Since quartz is the last mineral to form in, say, a granite, its crystals tend to be misshapen
because, as it grows, it ahs to fit around less-ordered silicate minerals such as feldspar
that formed earlier on in Bowen’s Rxn Series. Interestingly, and again in general, the
less-ordered silicate minerals such as quartz are more ________________ to
____________________ and tend to be more likely to end p as a weathered out ______
in a sedimentary rock such as ______________________
Mafic
Crystallization
Sheets
Fusion
Lighter
Aluminum
Bowen
Weathering
First
Elements
Resistant
Silica-tetrahedron
Silicon
Clast
Quartz
Mixture
Sandstone.
Lava
Gabbro
Structure