To follow-up on a few outstanding questions from the Gots and Nots I've put together a bit of information below.

Mineral evolution

If you are interested in reading a bit more about mineral evolution as I discussed in Lecture 8: Minerals 2 feel free to take a look at this general information from Dr. Robert Hazen. It is an exciting new way to think about minerals on Earth.

Why is ice a mineral?

Remember that minerals are: 1) Naturally occurring, 2) Solid, 3) Have a regular chemistry, 4) are inorganic, and 5) have a regular crystal structure.

Ice is naturally occurring (snow to sea ice to glaciers).

Ice is solid.

Ice has a regular chemistry H₂O.

Ice is inorganic (e.g. it isn't an organic molecule containing C-H covalent bonds).

Ice has a regular crystal structure where bonds between H₂O molecules produce long ranging order.

Here's more info on ice and the crystal forms (http://www.iceandclimate.nbi.ku.dk/research/flowofice/ice_crystal_structure/).

Atomic bonding

One way to organize remembering these is to think about what exactly is happening to the electrons. The weakest bonds (hydrogen bonds or intermolecular forces) do not involve electron transfer but instead slight differences in charge on the surface of the molecule. This allows molecules to interact sort of like magnets.

Ionic bonds involve passing off electrons from one atom to another and therefore are not sharing electrons.

Covalent bonds involve sharing electrons between different atoms. If sharing happens slightly unevenly (e.g. between hydrogen and oxygen in water) a polar molecule is formed.

Keeping track of all your mineral knowledge from this chapter

Concept maps are useful for organizing knowledge. I've added one associated with the chapter below.

You can follow connections between different ideas.

Concept map showing connections between different mineral properties.