Humanity's ever-increasing hunger for mineral raw materials, caused by a growing global population and ever increasing standards of living, has resulted in economic geology becoming a subject of urgent importance. This book provides a broad panorama of mineral deposits, covering their origin and geological characteristics, the principles of the sear…
Practical, concise, and easy to use, Simon & Schuster's Guide to Rocks and Minerals contains everything that the rock and mineral enthusiast needs to know. This field guide is divided into two large sections-one devoted to minerals and one to rocks, each prefaced by a comprehensive introduction that discusses formation, chemistry, and more.
Structured in the of a dichotomous key, comparable to those wudely used in botany, the mineral key provides an efficient and systematic approach to identifying rock-forming minerals in thin-section. This unique approach covers 150+ of the most commonly encountered rock-forming minerals, plus a few rarer but noteworthy ones.