Optical Mineralogy Course 2024/2025

Optical Mineralogy Course (801202)

• Course offered during the first semester of 2024/2025
• Instructor: Dr. Sanaa Al-Zyoud
• Department: Applied Earth and Environmental Sciences
• Faculty: Earth and Environmental Sciences
• University: Al al-Bayt University

Course Description

• Aims to study optical properties of rock-forming minerals
• Includes light properties and light theories
• Covers plane polarized light and its properties
• Focuses on minerals under polarized light (PPL and XPL)
• Relevant for later study units on igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks.
• Students gain basic knowledge, data analysis, and interpretation skills.
• Training provided on instruments and techniques, with the scientific way of thinking.

Course Outcomes

• Students will be able to distinguish between different types of light interactions.
• Students will understand the link between light properties and the physical properties of minerals.
• Students will be able to evaluate mineral properties optically.
• Students will be able to distinguish minerals optically

Textbook Information

• Title: Introduction to Optical Mineralogy
• Author: William D. Nesse
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, Inc.
• Year: 1991
• Edition: Second Edition
• Website: https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Optical-Mineralogy-William- Nesse/dp/0195060245

Course Content (by week)

• Week 1: Introduction, Nature of Light, Electromagnetic Radiation Phase, Perception of Color, Interaction of Light and Matter, Plane Polarized Light
• Week 2: Petrographic Microscope, Illuminator, Substage Assembly, Microscope Stage, Objective Lenses, Upper Polar, Bertrand Lens
• Week 3: Refractometry, Relief, Becke Line Method
• Week 5: Optics of Isotropic Materials, Isotropic Indicatrix, Distinguishing Between Isotropic & Anisotropic Minerals, Identification of Isotropic Minerals
• Week 6: Optics of Anisotropic Minerals, Introduction, Interference Phenomena, Determining Thickness of a Sample
• Week 7: Determining Birefringence from Color Chart, Recognizing Different Orders of Interference Colors.
• Week 8: Mid-Term Exam
• Week 9: Extinction. Use of the Accessory Plates, Sign of Elongation, Relief, Pleochroism, Uniaxial Optics, Optic Sign, Crystallographic Considerations, Uniaxial Indicatrix
• Week 10: Birefringence, and Interference Colors, Extinction, Pleochroism, Interference Figure, Selecting Grains, Determining Indices of Refraction
• Week 11: Biaxial Optics, Biaxial Indicatrix, Crystallographic Orientation, Biaxial Interference Figures
• Week 12: Identification of Minerals – Descriptive Features, Cleavage, Twinning, Alteration, Association, Tactics, Opaque Minerals, Non-minerals (selected topics).
• Week 13: Optical Properties of Non-silicate (Selected topics),
• Week 14: Optical Properties of Silicate (Selected topics)
• Week 15: Final Exam

Additional Topics

• Light (in relation to mineralogy): Light as a tool, light as energy, its nature, properties, and how light interacts with minerals. Types of polarization, generating polarized light, polarization by absorption, reflection, scattering.
• Quantum Electrodynamics and Light: Relationship between wave and particle duality, how light interacts with matter, describing light as being composed of photons.
• Minerals properties in PPL: A fundamental principle that most minerals can transmit light if they are thin enough, using the petrographic microscope. How to prepare mineral thin sections.
• Minerals Color: How color is used for mineral identification. Opaque & non-opaque mineral differences.
• Relief: The degree to which a mineral's grain stands out from the mounting medium, determining if relief is strong, moderate, or low.
• Optic axis: Direction in a crystal where light is either not refracted or polarized.