Vocabulary

This is an ever growing list that we will continue to work on forever!

Aggregate – accumulation or mass of crystals

Asthenosphere – a layer of the earth’s interior that consists of magma and exists beneath the lithosphere

Band – an easily identified layer within a mineral

Botryoidal – crusts of a mineral that formed in rounded masses, resembling a bunch of grapes

Breccia – a coarse grained rock composed of broken angular rock fragments solidified together

Chalcedony – a massive, microcrystalline variety quartz

Cleavage – the property of a mineral to break along the planes of its crystal structure, which reflects its internal crystal shape

Concentric

Continental plate

Concoidal

Crust

Crystal

Cubic

Druse

Effervesce

Feldspar

Fibrous

Fluorescence

Fracture

Glassy – vitreous luster

Gneiss

Granite

Granular

Hexagonal

Host

Hydrous

Igneous

Impurity

Inclusion

Iridescence

Lava

Lithosphere

Luster

Magma

Massive

Matrix

Metamorphic

Metamorphosed

Mica

Microcrystalline

Mineral

Native element

Nodule

Oceanic plate

Octahedral

Opaque

Ore

Oxidation

Pearly

Phenocryst

Porphyry

Prismatic

Pseudomorph

Pyroxene

Radiating

Rhombohedron

Rock

Schiller

Schist

Sediment

Sedimentary rock

Series

Silica

Specific gravity

Specimen

Stalactite

Stratovolcano

Striated

Subduction

Subduction zone

Tabular

Tailings

Tectonic plate

Tarnish

Translucent

Transparent

Trench

Twin

Vein

Vesicle – gas bubbles

Volcano

Waxy

zeolite

Inclusions – growths of other minerals embedded with agates