FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[Tom Mazanec]

I just ordered this book through Amazon.
Is anyone familiar with it? What level of expertise does it expect?

[Jamison Brizendine]

I'm familiar with the book, as it was my required textbook when I attended university. I think it is fairly good overview on the subject of mineralogy. At the end of each chapter there are "review" questions which I would recommend trying to solve on your own. The third edition isn't that much different from the second.

The only thing I don't like about the textbook is the lack of color pictures and the color pictures they do provide are very grainy and low quality.

[Tom Mazanec]

[Tom Mazanec]

Arrived last night, just got it.
In the upper left corner of the cover is a red note
Circulation of this edition outside the Indian subcontinent is UNAUTHORIZED
Gee, did I do something wrong ordering this????

[Peter Lemkin]

No, you did nothing wrong - the Indian companies that are doing the 'printing on demand' of textbooks and other older scientific books are. I recently ordered a 'reprint' of The Geology of Ore Deposits by Guilbert and Park, and it had the same exact working on the copyright page. They knew they were sending it OUT of India and Nepal [the two places listed as permissible] and it was sold by Abe's books in the UK to me here in the EU. It was a lot cheaper than buying copies of the original book, but the paper quality was poor, the printing poor - so that the type is light and hard to read - the B&W photos so poor as to be almost useless for some of them. So, your experience is not unique. I also purchased one other print on demand from India at the same time. Never again.....the money saved to me is not worth the bad printing. The copyright issue is their problem, IMO - one buys them feeling the copyright has expired and/or they have permission to print on demand and ship anywhere - though this is not so. It may be for some books printed in India, but not for Geology of Ore Deposits.

[Tom Mazanec]

Finished the first chapter.
On the back they list new to this edition:
X-ray mineralogy rewritten
new section on scanning electron microscopy
new section on electron microprobe analysis
discussion on minerals in igneous rocks expasnded
nucleation and crystallization expanded
70 new or revised figures
so I guess the third edition is an improvement!
I was glad to see a Michel Levy Color Chart (from what Brizendine said I though they might not) as I saw this in a book I borrowed from the library and I want to learn how to use it.

[Tom Mazanec]

Through Chapter 4. Chapter 4 (Optical Mineralogy) was tough slogging and I could have used a teacher to help me.
One quibble, from my background in Astronomy:
Figure 2 on page 104 gives cosmic rays as an electromagnetic radiation between X rays and Gamma Rays. Cosmic rays are not electromagnetic radiation (photons). They are protons and larger atomic nuclei traveling at relativistic speeds.

[Tom Mazanec]

Eight chapters done. Chapter 7 on metamorphic rocks was a bit challenging in places.
It would have been nice if the intro to chemical formulae on page 40 (Box 4) had also used pyrrhotite. Fortunately, I already knew that the x in the formula was a small fraction designating "holes" in the molecular structure.

[Tom Mazanec]

Read a couple chapters on crystals. I would have liked a few solid models to help me visualize the symmetries, or a tutor to help me over the rough spots, but I think I got most of it.

[Tom Tucker]

Tom, a web search should turn up some site which presents printable sheets of models of various crystal classes. So if you print, cut and paste you'll have useable models, at least for a start. Tom

[Tom Mazanec]

[Tom Mazanec]

Read chapters on analysis and atomic structure.
It also has descriptions of important minerals (random fact: the alpha of the halite unit cell is 5.6404 A. It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling to know that we can measure unit cells to five significant figures). in various listings, including an identification flowchart.

[Tom Mazanec]

[Jamison Brizendine]

Tom, honestly I think your being too generous. Considering the advancements in digital photography, I think an update on the color photographs should have been done for the 3rd edition.

Plate 2 by far is the worst for the color photography. Plate 2.2 is a rose quartz, but i can barely make out color or even a rough crystal shape. Plate 2.3 shows three very poor photos of amethyst and plate 2.5, the "brown quartz" from California is likely a heat treated Brazilian amethyst.

As per the black and white photographs, since most of them are pictures of graphs and models, i'm not as critical of them. I did find an awful photograph of an Arkansas wavellite in Figure 14.40 (p. 402).

Also note that Figure 1.15 (p. 24) the author incorrectly plotted the Grorund Feldspar that he describes in the book. It is supposed to be 3% anorthite, 62% albite and 35% orthoclase, but he plotted it as 3% anorthite, 52% albite and 45% orthoclase!

I haven't read the rest of the book in awhile but if I find anymore errors I will let you know.

[Tom Mazanec]