Mineral Identification Guides

First steps in learning to identify minerals.

Quick identification table for the minerals that form the majority of rocks.

The definitive field test for limestone and dolomite.

The various forms that minerals take in rocks.

A key attribute of minerals is their hardness. This is the standard hardness scale.

Experiments with using coins in your Mohs hardness kit.

Gallery of this key attribute of minerals: how they reflect light.

About this simple but effective field technique for mineral identification.

The most common and significant brown minerals.

The most common and significant green minerals.

Minerals that form during the consolidation of a rock from sediment.

Minerals that form by precipitation out of concentrated solutions.

Minerals formed during injection of deep hot fluids and pegmatite formation.

Minerals forming in solid rocks under prolonged heat and pressure.

Minerals that form during the solidification of a melt.

The best site on the Web for finding data on, localities for and pictures of minerals. The quizzes are difficult, though.

Sponsored by the Mineralogical Society of America, mineralogy4kids.org covers the most common rock-forming minerals in a way that's easy for grownups as well as kids. Start at "Mineral Properties."

This key by Alan Plante and Donald Peck presents a good introduction to techniques as well as a large (about 200) mineral list. On one enormous, wide page, it is unwieldy but comprehensive.

This easy-to-use site, by Hugh Danaher, will take you a long way toward naming any of about 300 minerals. Just make a few observations and enter them into the form.

GeoMan is Oregon geology instructor Mike Strickler. His site is uniquely useful in dividing the world of minerals into hardness classes based on the fingernail, the penny, glass or steel, and quartz.

Steven Dutch of the University of Wisconsin focuses on the most important criteria and the most likely minerals. His watchword is "when you see hoof prints, think horses, not zebras." An excellent set of rules of thumb.

Prof. Walter Franke of the Freie Universität Berlin produced this thorough guide (PDF) to something they don't teach at college any more: quick tests of minerals using blowpipe and simple chemistry-lab supplies.