Crystallography for a Dad Trying to Help his Daughter

Hi, I am not a mineralogist nor an expert in crystallography, chemistry, ... but I have a 10 yo daughter who loves minerals and crystals. She has memorized the periodic table, the chemical formulae of a few dozen minerals, and is an all around fan of the science of mineralogy. She has started asking questions about the crystals themselves. while I am not looking for answers to these specific questions, it may help you answer my ultimate question
1) Why does this chemical formula grow in this system, but another formula grows in another system
2) What causes the different terminations on crystals?
3) Can you predict the set of possible terminations if you know the crystal system?
4) If a mineral is isometric, why can it appear in so many different shapes other than something that looks like the isometric wireframe?
...

I think these all fall into the field of crystallography. Does anyone know a book that may be understandable by a 10 year old who is a great reader and strong in the sciences? Barring that, how about something a dad can digest and teach his daughter without having a doctorate in topology/physics/...?

Thanks
Bob
Bob

My friend, your daughter is asking remarkable questions. You have a gem right there!

My research efforts focus on some of the questions she is asking; let me know when she's ready for college! In the meantime, the following is one of my favorites, providing discussions at approachable levels and lots of good ideas for things to try. It's been out in various editions, and seems to show up in used book stores. Amazon's got it for less than $20.

Crystals and Crystal Growing, A Holden and PS Morrison, MIT Press, 1982.

Best, Ken

[www.rockhounds.com]

A good general introductory book on mineralogy is John Sinkankas "Mineralogy for Amateurs"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2009 12:56PM by David Von Bargen.

There are several excellent on-line introductions to crystallography available for free on the web. Some of them explain the relationships between crystal faces and planes of atoms in the crystals quite well - which in turn explains why some crystal faces are seen more frequently than others.

You will probably need to produce some simple visual aids for this, and I recommend either glass marbles or large ball-bearings and a clear plastic box of some sort to model the atoms in a cubic crystal.

When you invited me to see your etchings, I didn't expect to see so much degraded quartz. Really.

Robert,
Crystalography can be a complex subject to fully understand, but sound like she's well suited to appreciate it. In the front few pages of the Simon & Schuster's guide to Rocks and Minerals (pgs. 16-21), there is a "basic" explanation of crystal chemistry, and a very nice series of crystal charts for each system, including line drawings and a short list of minerals which fall into each system. (it's also a nice field guide book for her as well).

What I recommend is that you two take from this text and series of charts and build your own guide book from it. Nothing will help you better understand this system and terminology than to pull the basics together for yourselves! Using a three ring binder, first create "chapter" pages for each basic system (Isometric, Hexagonal/hex, Hexagonal/tri-rhom, Tetragonal, Orthorhombic, Monoclinic and Triclinic). You can write down info in a more simplified form, add images of the mineral species which fall under each system, draw a basic crystal model, what ever! You can later refine the guidebook by adding pages for the various class and degree of symmetry for each "system" if you both have enjoyed the project thus far. Most importantly, all along this process, remember to build yourself a glossary of terms. When you come to a term which requires some explanation (i.e. unit cell, mirror plane, various elements of symmetry, axis, equivalent, etc.,), look it up and write it down as simply and straight forward as possible, so you can refer back to it later (sadly, rarely will you find a usable glossary of terms in a book advanced enough to answer the questions you posed above).

A good "hands on" project, gathering the info yourselves and pulling it together into more "digestible" tidbits will really help it sink in, remember to keep this fun too! You two can peruse the mineral gallery here and choose together, the "coolest" pics of minerals to print out and add to the project pages. As with anything, once you have the basics, systems, classes and terminology down pat, you can then breeze through a more thorough text on the subject, which it sounds like she's already itching for!


MRH (Montesorri School Dad)



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2009 07:43PM by Mark Heintzelman.

......and don't forget the Goldschmidt drawing feature on most mineral descriptive pages in mindat!!!!!

Don S.

Don't forget the local mineral club in your area for a good source of information and they might even have kids group in the club. Al

Thanks everyone - some great ideas here! Well one our way (this is not a 5 minute discussion). I have taken the approach of using several texts and making the 3d models of the 32 classes (half way through). We talked a little about symmetry and she sees it (was even able to spot the symmetry of the domatic model I made).


In case anyone reads this and is trying to learn the subject at an intro level, a great resource I found - easy to understand is: [www.tulane.edu]



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/26/2009 03:07PM by Jessica and Robert Simonoff.

Dear Bob

Your daughter is very lucky having parents who have the capability to support her interest.
She will find many interesting things in here.

A month ago I showed the site to a 10 year "young" man!
he was so hooked that he in the evening managed to crash their home PC!