Economic Importance of Minerals. Naming of Minerals

Since before historic time, minerals have played a major role in humanity's way of life and standard of living. With each successive century they have become increasingly important, and today we depend on them in countless ways—from the construction of skyscrapers to the manufacture of computers. Modern civilization depends on and necessitates the prodigious use of minerals. A few minerals such as talc, asbestos, and sulfur are used essentially as they come from the ground, but most are first processed to obtain a usable material. Some of the more familiar of these products are bricks, glass, cement, plaster, and a score of metals ranging from iron to gold. Metallic ores and industrial minerals are mined on every continent wherever specific minerals are sufficiently concentrated to be economically extracted.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Mines (as reported in Geotimes, 1989, v. 34, p. 19), "each year, every American requires 40,000 pounds of new minerals. At that level of consumption, the average newborn infant will need a lifetime supply of 795 pounds of lead (mainly for car batteries, solder, and electronic components); 757 pounds of zinc (as an alloy of copper to make brass, as protective coatings on steel, and as chemical compounds in rubber and paints); 1500 pounds of copper (mainly used in electrical motors, generators, communication equipment, and wiring); 3593 pounds of aluminum (for all sorts of things such as beverage cans, folding lawn chairs, and aircraft); 32,700 pounds of pig iron (for kitchen utensils, automobiles, ships, and large buildings); 28,213 pounds of salt (for cooking, highway de-icing, and detergents); and 1,238,101 pounds of stone, sand, gravel, and cement (for building roads, homes, schools, offices, and factories)." A nationwide commitment to recycling will lower many of the above estimates.

The location of mineable metal and industrial mineral deposits, and the study of the origin, size, and ore grade of these deposits is the domain of economic geologists. But a knowledge of the chemistry, occurrence, and physical properties of minerals is basic to pursuits in economic geology.

Naming of Minerals. Minerals are most commonly classified on the basis of the presence of a major chemical component (an anion or anionic complex) into oxides, sulfides, silicates, carbonates, phosphates, and so forth. This is especially convenient because most minerals contain only one major anion. However, naming minerals is not based on such a logical chemical scheme.

The careful description and identification of minerals commonly require highly specialized techniques such as chemical analysis and measurement of physical properties, among which are the specific gravity, optical properties, and X-ray parameters that relate to the atomic structure of minerals. However, the names of minerals are not arrived at in an analogous scientific manner. Minerals may be given names on the basis of some physical property or chemical aspect, or they may be named after a locality, a public figure, a mineralogist, or almost any other subject considered appropriate. Some examples of mineral names and their derivations are as follows:

- Albite (NaAlSi₃O_ö) from the Latin albus (white), an allusion to its color.
- Rhodonite (MnSi0₃) from the Greek rhodon (a rose), an allusion to its characteristically pink color.
- Chromite (FeCr₂0₄) because of the presence of a large amount of chromium in the mineral.
- Magnetite (Fe₃0₄) because of its magnetic properties.
- Franklinite (ZnFe₂0₄) after a locality, Franklin, New Jersey, where it occurs as the dominant zinc mineral.
- Sillimanite (Al₂Si0₅) after Professor Benjamin Silliman of Yale University (1779-1864).

An international committee, the Commission on New Minerals and New Mineral Names of the International Mineralogical Association, now reviews all new mineral descriptions and judges the appropriateness of new mineral names as well as the scientific characterization of newly discovered mineral species. The Glossary of Minerals Species, published in 1991 by Michael Fleischer (see end of this chapter for complete reference), lists the internationally recommended names for nearly 3500 mineral entries. This text will use the names given in that listing. An alphabetical listing of about 3800 mineral species is given in Encyclopedia of Mineral Names, 1997 (see end of this chapter for complete reference).