Scienze Naturali, Scienze dei Sistemi Naturali,
Evoluzione del comportamento animale e dell’uomo

- To provide the basic conceptual tools on the crystalline state which characterizes minerals, in order to understand the structure and physical and chemical properties;
- To describe the physical properties and the most significant phenomena and transformations that affect the minerals;
- To illustrate the most important families of minerals of the earth's crust, and the conditions of their genesis.

Written exam with questions regarding problems performed during exercises at the lab, questions concerning the contents of the program, recognition of crystalline models, recognition of minerals in the collection used during the exercises. Oral optional, to improve the grade of the written.

Esame scritto con domande riguardanti problemi eseguiti durante le esercitazioni, domande inerenti i contenuti del programma, riconoscimento di modellini cristallini, riconoscimento di minerali della collezione usata durante le esercitazioni. Orale facoltativo, per migliorare il voto dello scritto.

- Introduction - definition of Mineral - minerals and rocks - the most abundant elements - ions and anions – coordination - crystalline systems
- optical classes - 11 essential minerals. Classification of minerals
- Crystal physics: Optical mineralogy - the nature of light - index of refraction - Snell's law - dispersion – light absorption - lenses and polarized light microscopy - relief - Becke’s line - birefringence – optical indicatices - observation in polarized light with crossed polarisers - retardation - extinction - Fresnel formula - chromatic polarization and interference colours - conoscopic observation and interference figures: uniaxial and biaxial materials. Real crystal: point defects - linear defects
- planar defects - three-dimensional defects – twining. Physical properties of minerals: crystal form, aggregates, colour, lustre, hardness, toughness, cleavage, fracture, density.
- Morphological crystallography. Steno's law, Haüy’s law, Miller indices. Combinations of symmetry elements. Classes of symmetry and crystalline forms. Lattices, two-dimensional space groups, threedimensional lattices (Bravais lattices). Structural crystallography. Screw axis and glide planes - three-dimensional space groups- reciprocal lattice.
- Diffraction: X-ray sources – Bragg’s equation – Ewald’s sphere and reciprocal lattice - powder diffraction
- Crystal chemistry: chemical bond and physical properties – ionic radii – close packing - polyhedron of coordination - Pauling's rules - structural types - crystal chemistry of silicates, isomorphism, polymorphism - polytypism - pseudomorphism - polysomatism. Normalization of chemical analysis of mineral and crystal chemical formulas.
- Systematic Mineralogy: Description of the most important mineral species. Chemical and mineralogical composition of the Earth crust. Genesis of Mineral Exercises on crystallographic planes and directions (Miller indices and zone law). Exercises on two-dimensional space groups. Exercises on crystallographic solids. Exercises on powder diffraction. Exercises on light microscopy and optical problems. Exercises on recognition of minerals.

The course material presented in class is available on the course website
The recommended basic texts for the course are:
Klein (2004) Mineralogy, Freeman, pp. 632,
Rigault (2005) Introduzione alla Cristallografia, Levrotto e Bella, pp215
It strongly advised to use the following material for further information and integration:
M.D. Dyar & M.E. Gunter. Mineralogy and Optical Mineralogy.
Mineralogical Society of America, Chantilly, VA (material DVD-ROM)