One of the main goals in this course is to learn to identify mineral specimens in the petrographic microscope. You should be able to identify the minerals below, on their own, or within a rock matrix (assuming the crystals are large enough to determine identifying features). Note that this list may need to be altered during the quarter, mainly because we don't actually have thin sections of all these minerals (although I continue to accumulate new sections).

As you will learn, you should be able to identify these on the basis of features you can identify and/or measure in the microscope. Because we will not be learning reflected light techniques, opaque minerals can only be identified when they show a distinctive crystal form.

What should you know about these minerals? In practice, the answer is "whatever it takes to identify them," but much of the necessary knowledge is learned over time. For the purpose of this course, you should know at least the following for these minerals: Relief (+/-, high, medium, or low), Opaque/Isotropic/Uniaxial/Biaxial, Optic Sign (if uniaxial or biaxial), Cleavage, Sign of elongation, Angle of extinction (parallel/symmetric/inclined), Dispersion (if notable), Color, Crystal state of aggregation, other distinctive features.

Another listing by optical character may be useful as well: