Over the course of the quarter, you will learn a small amount of information about a moderately large number of minerals. I intend this paper to serve the following goals:
You should choose a single mineral (or small mineral group), and each student will choose a different one. The mineral topics will be chosen by sending me an email requesting a mineral to work on. I will send you an email in reply letting you know if that mineral has been chosen yet or not. You should choose a mineral by the end of the third week of classes (January 24), or I will assign you one (mineral assignments will be sent via email to the email address registered with the University).
The paper (worth 60 points) is due about a month before the end of classes (check Homework page). This should have all text, figures, tables, citations, references, etc. It should be your best effort at a finished paper. However, I will offer comments on it and return it to you approximately a week later. You should turn in a revised version by the last day of class which will be worth 40 points.
The paper should be an extended abstract, with text running 3-5 pages, double-spaced, with margins about 1 inch. Following this text section should be References, Tables (if you have any), and Figures, which can be as long as you like. There is an accompanying document, "How to write a scientific paper," which goes into more detail on the organization of the paper.
Your paper should have the following sections. All sections through "Use" should be composed of full sentences, formed into paragraphs. Bulleted lists are unacceptable:
| Introduction | set out the main features of the mineral, and give some sense of why it is important to understand |
| Chemistry | this should include typical compositions, range of variation in composition, and crystal chemistry (what sites are in the mineral, what elements go into those sites) |
| Structure | what type of 3-D structure the mineral has, what type of symmetry it has, how these relate to the macroscopic features such as cleavage and crystal shape |
| Physical Features | color, hardness, streak if applicable, typical crystal forms, typical crystal shape, cleavage |
| Geologic occurrence | how does this mineral form? In what type of geologic environments? Is it common or not? If not, why not - chemistry or some other reason? |
| Use | what commercial or industrial uses have humans found for this mineral? in what way is this mineral scientifically interesting? |
| References | See the accompanying guide, "How to write a scientific paper," for more details. |
| Tables | (If you have any) |
| Figures | See the accompanying guide, "How to write a scientific paper," for more details. |
| Literature Sources | This is the front pages of the literature sources, as mentioned in the next section. This section does not need to be labeled. |
Part of the task here is digging into the literature and the library. You cannot do this assignment without going to the library. Although it is acceptable to get a start on some topics from internet web sites, you may not use any web resource as a reference. You may use CrystalMaker on the computer lab Macintoshes to obtain crystal structure figures, if you wish. Your figure caption should then include the citation, "Image rendered from CrystalMaker version [insert version], data file [insert name of data file]."
You must include at least one actual scientific article from a real journal as sources for material in the paper, and you should include xeroxed copies of the first page of each article at the end of your paper. Textbooks, field guides, etc. do not count as journals, nor do magazines like "Rocks and Minerals", but books like "Reviews in Mineralogy" (which are compilations of articles) do. Ask if you are unsure.
You might want to use GeoRef to hunt for relevant papers. A good search method is to get a general paper, and hunt through it looking for potentially useful papers that it cites, then get those and perhaps look through their references as well, and so on. The type of content I would expect you to glean from your articles might include the range of compositional variation, perhaps detailed information about geological occurrence or mode of formation.