Welcome to the web page for GEL 60 Earth Materials

Contact Info:
Jim Rustad
jrrustad@ucdavis.edu

Office Hours:
Wed. 11:00-12:00 (PHYGEO 196)
Thurs. 2:30-3:30 (PHYGEO 395)
and by appointment

Structure movies are now available on YouTube.
Search under jrrustad

Problem Set 1 Text  Shells, Unicorns, Fish

Problem Set 2

Key for Problem Set 1
Key for Problem Set 2


Summary of Material through Wed 10/10/2007


Friday Oct 12, Chemical Bonding, Ion size and charge (lecture notes)
Here is the bottom line from this lecture:

                    atom%      Charge      Radius (angstroms)
                   in crust 
Oxygen             47          2-           1.3
Silicon            28          4+           0.3
Aluminum            8          3+           0.5
Iron                4          3+/2+        0.7 (0.85 Fe2+)
Calcium             4          2+           1.1
Sodium              2          1+           1.1
Potassium           2          1+           1.4
Magnesium           2          2+           0.8
Titanium            0.5        4+           0.65
Hydrogen            0.1        1+        ------

Know the order of crustal abundance (first column), the
charges and the sizes of
all these ions.  That's all.

Practice question:

The mineral olivine is a mixture of forsterite (Mg2SiO4) and fayalite (Fe2SiO4).
Which component would be expected to melt at a higher temperature?
Why?

Monday 15 Oct  Creation of Ions, Coordination Number, No Rattle Rule (lecture notes)
Pictures of quartz, ice, garnet to illustrate the concept that the Earth's crust consists basically
of close packed oxygen atoms with cations in the cavities. 

Wed 17 Oct.  Sharing of oxygens between coordination polyhedra, Electrostatic Valency Principle
Classification of minerals (no notes posted--main thing is to know how to calculate Pauling bond
strengths--you can practice on the overheads from Friday 19 Oct lecture)

Friday 19 Oct  Visualizing Crystal Structures, Crystalmaker code, Carbonate Minerals (overheads)
Xtalmaker files (calcite, aragonite, dolomite)

Monday 22 Oct  Phosphates Sulfates Borates (powerpoint presentation)
Movies (apatite1 apatite2 turquoise gypsum anhydrite borax)
Xtalmaker files (apatite, turquoise, gypsum, anhydrite, borax)


Wednesday 24 Oct Oxides, Hydroxides, Halides (powerpoint presentation)
Movies (hematite/corundum, rutile, spinel, goethite, gibbsite, brucite, fluorite, perovskite)
Xtalmaker files (hematite/corundum, rutile, spinel, goethite,gibbsite,brucite,fluorite,perovskite)

Friday 26 Oct Special Guest Lecture Prof. Casey Environmental Earth Materials

Monday 29 Oct Silicate Structures (notes in powerpoint)

Wed 31 Oct Olivine and Garnet (powerpoint presentation)
Movies (olivine, garnet)
Xtalmaker files (olivine, garnet)

Friday 2 Nov Single-Chain Silicates (notes in pdf)
Remember-- there are four main structures, protoenstatite, enstatite, pigeonite, diopside
Xtalmaker files (protoenstatite, enstatite, pigeonite, diopside)

Monday 5 Nov Exam

Wednesday 7 Nov Double Chain Silicates (amphiboles, we also finished up single chain; notes in pdf)

Friday 9 Nov Layer Silicates (notes in pdf)

Monday 12 Nov Holiday

Wed 14 Nov Exam retake

Friday 16 Nov Silica Polymorphs (no notes on this, main thing is to understand reconstructive and displacive phase transformations)

Monday 19 Nov Feldspars  (Si-Al ordering schemes (pdf) ) (structure movie, K-coordination movie (sanidine), Ca coordination movie (anorthite))
Xtalmaker files (sanidine, microcline, albite, anorthite)

Wed 21 Nov Color in Minerals (notes in pdf----fayalite, corundum and beryl supporting movies in quicktime format)
we only got through crystal field transitions today--
Monday we finish with charge-transfer transitions ligand-metal and metal-metal,
and also color centers, both of which are in the notes)

Monday 26 Nov Finish color

Wed 28 Nov X-Ray Determination of Crystal Structure

Friday 30 Nov  Guest Appearance by Patrick Senge, Mineral Stability I (Phases, Components)

Monday 3 Dec Mineral Stability II (Energy and Entropy; Free Energy)

Wed 5 Dec   Equation of State (in free energy notes), Phase Rule

Friday 7 Dec Wrap-up and Review of Major Concepts

For the final- my advice is to spend some time studying the pyroxenes in addition
to the "Review of Major Concepts" slides for Dec 7.  Know the pyroxene
quadrilateral, and the names of the 4 important pyroxene structures
(protoenstatite, orthopyroxene, pigeonite, clinopyroxene) and what distinguishes them.
Also know the jadeite substitution (Na+Al = Ca+Mg), and the Tschermak substitution (Mg+Si=2Al).

You will be given a periodic table.

A calculator will not be necessary.


You must know the chemical formulas and names for the following minerals:

Mineral Formulas

There will be a mineral formulas test as a part of the final.

If you wish you may take the mineral formulas test any Thursday 2:30-3:30 from
now until the end of the quarter.  If you get the score you want, you can skip that
part of the final exam.

You can take the test as often as you wish and take the highest score.


Here is a copy of last years midterm.  We have covered somewhat different material,
but this gives you an idea of what the test will be like

Here is a copy of last years final.  (here is the diagram for problem 10) Again we covered different material to some extent.
In particular, we did nothing with color last year.  Don't worry about the silica toxicity question.