Mineral science

This 22nd edition was prepared during a time of change in many Geology (or Earth Science, or Earth and Planetary Science, or Geoscience) departments, their undergraduate courses, and students. To reflect the extent of the revision, this text for the introductory mineralogy course even has a new title, Manual of Mineral Science, succeeding many earl ier editions with the name Manual of Mineralogy. Some of the changes in the teaching of mineralogy were emphasized for me in June, 1996, when I was among the participants in a National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop on "Teaching Mineralogy" at Smith College, in review sessions about "goals in the college course in mineralogy," the majority of participants concurred that the subject of crystal chemistry and the crystal chemical treatment of the rock-forming minerals were a top priority. The identification of rock-forming minerals by hand specimen study was considered a very important component of the accompanying laboratory. However, no clear consensus emerged on how much time should be spent on crystallographic concepts, and to what extent such concepts should be pursued.
I also learned that students are more comfortable if the course begins with chemical and crystallo-chemical subject matter, instead of crystallography. The , main reason is that almost all undergraduate mineralogy courses have a college-level chemistry course as a prerequisite. Several reviewers of the 21st edition of the Manual of Mineralogy pointed this out as well. Last year, for the first time in a long teaching career in mineralogy, I myself began the course with subject matter in chemistry and crystal chemistry and followed with crystallographic concepts. It worked well. <...>