The Common Rocks And Minerals Of Missouri - free ebook by W. D. Keller

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The Common Rocks And Minerals Of Missouri

W. D. Keller

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THE COMMON ROCKS AND MINERALS OF MISSOURI

THE COMMON ROCKS AND MINERALS OF MISSOURI

W. D. KELLER UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS COLUMBIA University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201 ISBN 0-8262-0585-2 Library of Congress Card Number 67-66173 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved First Edition 1945 Revised Editions 1948, 1961 Reprinted 1971, 1973, 1978, 1986, 1989, 1992, 2004...

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INTRODUCTION

INTRODUCTION

Missourians are interested in the rocks and minerals which they find on their farms, in excavations, and while on their vacation trips. Some of the specimens are unusual in shape or appearance, some are crystalline and beautiful, some may be ores of economic importance, but many simply arouse the curiosity of the finder. Many of these specimens are received each year at the University at Columbia, and each is usually accompanied by a request for information on the correct name for the specimen,

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DETERMINATIVE KEY

DETERMINATIVE KEY

A rock or mineral specimen which is unfamiliar to the collector may be identified by using the information in this booklet in either of two ways: (1) the reader may turn through the pages and compare his specimen with the photographs of others named there and read their descriptions until he finds a match for his specimen; or (2), the better way, he may classify his specimen first by the use of the determinative key which follows and be directed thereby to the pages in the book for confirmation

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Limestone and Dolomite

Limestone and Dolomite

Limestone is a bedded or layered rock found abundantly in Missouri in bluffs, creek beds, hill sides, and is known to underlie the soil in most of the south half of the state. It occurs in thin slabs, thick layers, and in massive beds which may make a small cliff in themselves. Limestone is soft enough to be scratched with steel. It is commonly white to grayish, but may be stained tan, yellowish, or reddish by iron oxide, or darkened through shades of gray to black by the presence of very finely

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“Cotton Rock” Limestone

“Cotton Rock” Limestone

“Cotton rock” refers to a white to slightly gray or buff variety of limestone which has a “soft”, somewhat chalky and porous appearance that is suggestive of cotton. Missouri “cotton rock” is usually dolomitic. Although the term “cotton rock” has no standing in a technical sense, its fairly wide use indicates that the name has descriptive value....

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Marble

Marble

Marble, in a scientific sense, is a metamorphic rock and does not occur as such in Missouri. However, marble has been used as a name in commercial trade to refer to a crystalline, fairly pure limestone, which possesses most of the useful qualities of true marble. In that sense the “marbles” quarried near Ozora and Carthage, Missouri, are very excellent stone. No doubt some recrystallization has occurred in connection with the faulting in the Ozora region, and this may be interpreted as mild meta

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Cave Onyx and Deposits

Cave Onyx and Deposits

The stalactites (rock icicles) hanging from cave ceilings, stalagmites built up from the floors, and other drip stone deposits of caves are largely calcite, the mineral of limestone. Again, this can be recognized by the limestone acid test (effervescence, see limestone). Cave onyx may be banded like agate. It is then commonly called Mexican onyx. The name travertine has also been applied to such deposits from water....

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Travertine

Travertine

Travertine is a general name for calcium carbonate deposits of varying size, shape, color, texture, and purity which originate largely through evaporation of spring or surface water. Its composition of calcium carbonate, calcite mineral, is easily confirmed by effervescence in acid, like limestone....

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Calcite

Calcite

Calcite (sometimes called “tiff” locally in south- western Missouri), the essential mineral in limestone, can be recognized by several definite characteristics: The one single test of calcite which is most diagnostic, and which appeals to most persons, is number one above, effervescence of the solid lump in dilute acid. The bubbles are filled by carbon dioxide gas which comes from, and is freed from, the calcite by the reaction of it with the acid. Calcite is calcium carbonate, CaCO₃. A small ca

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Dolomite

Dolomite

Dolomite mineral occurs in Missouri as a constituent of dolomitic limestone or as a vein and cavity filling in the rocks of the Joplin mining district and as a lining in cavities in the dolomitic limestones of the southern and eastern parts of the state. Dolomite when powdered (by scraping the surface of the specimen, for dolomite is softer than steel or glass) effervesces freely in cold dilute hydrochloric (muriatic) acid, but the lump dolomite effervesces very slowly, if at all . Calcite effer

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Shale

Shale

Shale bluff at a strip mine near Columbia. Shale is a compressed, and layered or laminated clay or mud rock. Consequently it will return to mud if it is wetted with water and rubbed. This may serve as a test for shale. It may occur in thick layers or formations, five, ten to fifty or more feet in thickness, and it ranges downward to paper-thin partings between beds of limestone. It is also commonly associated with coal beds. The color of shale varies from light gray to black, or it may be tan, y

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Fire Clay

Fire Clay

Fire clay resembles shale in that it is also a clayey rock and becomes muddy upon wetting and rubbing. It differs from shale at sight in that it (fire clay) is not laminated like shale, but occurs instead in a massive structure which is relatively uniform throughout. Fire clay fractures naturally into blocky or irregular fragments ranging in size from boulders to rough flakes, whereas shale weathers into layered, platy chips. Shales are commonly buff, yellow, reddish, greenish, or brown in addit

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Plastic Fire Clay

Plastic Fire Clay

Plastic fire clay forms a sticky, soft mass when wetted and kneaded with water, and will bond together other clays or rocks. Large plastic fire clay deposits occur in Audrain, Callaway, and St. Louis counties, and lesser quantities are known in Boone, Osage, Gasconade, and Phelps counties. The larger deposits assume a blanket shape with a highly irregular lower surface....

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Flint Fire Clay

Flint Fire Clay

Flint fire clay is very fine-grained, smooth or slick, and breaks with a shell-like (conchoidal) fracture. It varies in color from white to black, but most flint fire clay mined is near to white. It is relatively non-plastic—that is, does not readily slake or form a sticky mass when worked a little in water. In fact, flint fire clay has been used locally as road surfacing because it does not become very muddy and sticky. Of course, it is inferior to black-top or concrete road surfaces and has to

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Diaspore Clay

Diaspore Clay

Diaspore clay is a harsh, usually porous, earthy type of clay which has been found in Warren, Osage, Gasconade, Maries, Franklin, Phelps, and Crawford counties in Missouri. Some diaspore clay is mealy, or finely granular, some is chalky to compact, and much of it is more or less oolitic. Oolites (oolitic structure) are small rounded bodies varying in size from about bird shot to BB shot size, and those in diaspore may be solid or hollow. Their hollow structure contributes to the porous condition

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Burley Clay

Burley Clay

Burley clay. Note the oolitic structure, the “burls.” From a diaspore pit near Swiss. Burley clay is a fire clay intermediate in alumina content between flint clay and first quality diaspore. It takes its name from the oolites (rounded pellets of diaspore) which are scattered through a flint clay base and which were called “burls” by the early clay miners. As the relative number of diaspore oolites increase, an otherwise flint clay becomes burley-flint, then typical burley, and finally grades in

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Sandstone

Sandstone

Sandstone is a rock made of sand-size particles more or less well cemented. It is recognized by the grains of sand which are dislodged or scratched loose when the rock is broken, or when scraped with a piece of steel or another hard rock. The old-fashioned grindstone is a sandstone nicely cemented by nature. Sandstone bluff near mine entrance, Crystal City. (Photo courtesy of Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company.) Sandstone occurs in thin layers to thick massive beds and deposits which may exceed fift

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Chert, Flint

Chert, Flint

The names chert and flint have in some regions been used for the same hard, fine-grained rock found so abundantly in Missouri, but correct usage employs chert for the white and gray varieties, and flint for the black variety. Flint may be thought of as slightly impure chert, a chert which is colored black by a small amount of pigment, usually fine carbon, or perhaps iron sulphide, scattered through it like fine dust. Chert, fossiliferous and slightly speckled. Note typical sharp edges, smooth su

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Weathered Chert

Weathered Chert

Weathered chert, or leached chert, is a white to gray, or yellowish, porous, light-weight, harsh to feel, chalky-appearing rock which occurs over much of the southern half of Missouri. It does not effervesce in acid. Usually it occurs as a zone from a fraction of, to more than an inch in thickness, about a denser core of hard, compact chert (flint), or makes up an entire small rock fragment or gravel. Chert hand specimen showing quartz-lined fossil cavity in center, compact fresh chert in interi

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“Kaoleen”

“Kaoleen”

“Kaoleen” is a term used locally in part of south-central Missouri to refer to a chalky, white to tan or buff, porous weathered chert, but the name should be dropped because it is unnecessary (use weathered chert), confusing, and not recognized elsewhere. Most probably the term arose in corruption of the word kaolin , which is the name for a true, high-quality clay, to which the leached and weathered chert bears a slight resemblance. Kaolin has the chemical composition of clay (hydrous aluminum

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Tripoli

Tripoli

Tripoli occurs in the vicinity of Seneca, Newton County, Missouri. It is a light-weight, porous, white to creamy, siliceous rock, which may be scratched because of its softness. Tripoli represents the porous insoluble residue of an earlier rock, which was composed of skeletal insoluble silica and interstitial soluble calcium carbonate (calcite), the latter having been dissolved away by ground water. Tripoli has a chalky appearance but is totally unlike chalk chemically. Tripoli is nearly pure si

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Agate

Agate

Agate is a banded variety of chert. Although the chemical composition of agate is SiO₂, the same as chert, a microscopically fibrous part of it having a waxy luster or varying in color or translucency may give the appearance to the rock that we associate with the name agate. The mineral name chalcedony is given to the fibrous, waxy material. Typical agates are most abundant in Missouri in the glacial and stream gravels in the northern part of the state, although part of the Potosi drusy quartz a

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Jasper

Jasper

Jasper is chert which is colored red or yellowish brown by iron oxides....

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Granite

Granite

Close view of a granite hand specimen. Feldspar predominates. Quartz appears dark in the photograph, but shows glistening edges and points. From Graniteville. Granite is a granular (coarse-grained) rock which has a glassy luster and is too hard to be scratched appreciably by steel. It may be white to gray, tan, brown, or pink to red in color, but pinkish to red granite predominates in Missouri. Some black stone, referred to locally as “black granite,” is usually a variety of gabbro. Most Missour

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Quartz

Quartz

Quartz is a mineral of wide-spread occurrence which is characterized by the following properties: (1) it is considerably harder than glass or steel, (2) it has a high luster, glassy to oily, (3) it breaks with an irregular or rough glistening fracture, and (4) it crystallizes in six-sided crystals when it grows unobstructed. Ordinary acids do not attack quartz, and it is relatively unaffected by chemical weathering in Missouri. Its composition is silicon dioxide, SiO₂. Quartz occurs in granite a

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Feldspar

Feldspar

Feldspar is a white to pink or red mineral having a glassy luster on its flat broken surfaces (cleavage faces). It will scratch window glass. It is the most abundant mineral in granite and usually controls the color of that rock; for example, the red granite at Graniteville contains red feldspar, and the pink-gray granite in the Knoblick region has feldspar of those colors. Small bodies or bands of very coarse feldspar, quartz, and mica (pegmatite dikes) which cut the granite may contain crystal

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Mica

Mica

Mica, incorrectly called isinglass, is an elastic, fairly soft, platy mineral, which may be split into flakes of paper thinness. The relatively clear variety is called muscovite, and the brownish black to black variety is biotite, both being members of the mica family. They may occur in Missouri in small grains in the igneous rocks, except that muscovite may be present in sandstone, where it was deposited along with the quartz sand. Mica is used chiefly as insulating material in the electrical i

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Porphyry, Rhyolite, Rhyolite Porphyry

Porphyry, Rhyolite, Rhyolite Porphyry

Porphyry and granite are the two most abundant igneous rocks in southeastern Missouri (Iron, Madison, and St. Francois counties, and adjacent country). The porphyry there is a compact, very fine-grained, almost glassy, hard, brittle rock that varies in color from light gray through pink and red to dark purplish red and almost black. It always breaks with a horny, flinty fracture. Small mineral crystals of glistening quartz and usually reddish feldspar are generally scattered throughout the dense

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Basalt

Basalt

Basalt is a fine-grained, dark-gray, dark-green, or greenish-black rock which is hard enough to be scratched with difficulty by steel. It originated by the solidification of lava. Today, basalt rock is forming where lava at the Hawaiian volcanoes solidifies. The relatively small amount of basalt in southeastern Missouri solidified mostly in cracks within other rocks through which it rose. Those occurrences—that is, fillings in nearly vertical cracks—are called dikes. The basalt dikes in southeas

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Gabbro and Diabase

Gabbro and Diabase

Gabbro and Diabase are dark-colored, coarse-grained, hard igneous rocks, which may be found in the granite and porphyry regions of southeastern Missouri and as separate boulders in the glacial deposits north of the Missouri River. Both resemble basalt, which has been described in detail elsewhere, except that basalt is fine-grained, whereas gabbro and diabase are coarse-grained (separate grains easily distinguished without a magnifying glass). The layman is ordinarily not concerned with the tech

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Coal

Coal

Coal is so well known that little need be written about its distinguishing characteristics. Most of the coal in Missouri is of about bituminous rank, although some cannel coal, which is discussed below, is also present. Missouri bituminous coal occurs in the northern and western parts of the state. It contains bands of dull coal, bands of glistening “glance” coal, the sooty “mineral charcoal,” and common mineral impurities like calcite, gypsum, pyrite and marcasite (“sulphur”), clay minerals, an

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Pyrite and Marcasite

Pyrite and Marcasite

Pyrite and Marcasite (Fool’s gold, “sulphur”) are brassy yellow, metallic, heavy minerals which will scratch glass but which cannot themselves be scratched by a knife, and which will leave a dark-greenish to black mark or streak when rubbed across unglazed porcelain or chert rock. Both are composed of iron sulphide, FeS₂—iron 46.6 per cent, and sulphur 53.4 per cent. Although they have the same chemical composition, they differ in internal atomic and crystalline structure, which is of interest t

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Conglomerate

Conglomerate

Conglomerate is a rock composed of gravel, pebbles, and boulders cemented together, with more or less sand and clay between the larger fragments. It is truly a conglomeration of rock fragments as one would find loose today in a stream or ocean shore gravel bar, or in a hillside gravel bank. Probably the conglomerate most abundantly exposed in Missouri is that overlying the igneous rocks in the southeast part of the state....

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Gneiss

Gneiss

Gneiss is a hard, granular rock which exhibits a coarsely banded structure (resulting from metamorphism). The bands are evident because of color differences due to different mineral content; those dark in color are commonly rich in dark mica (biotite) or hornblende (a dark green to black, hard mineral), whereas the light bands contain feldspar and quartz. Many gneisses have about the same mineral composition as granite; hence, for our nontechnical purposes, a banded rock, otherwise granite-like,

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Hematite

Hematite

Hematite (“keel”) is a heavy, red to purplish red, dull to glistening mineral which leaves a red mark or streak when rubbed on a hard white rock (like chert) or on unglazed porcelain. This red color of hematite coating or stain is responsible for our red clays, red soils, red iron rust, reddish creek-water, and almost every bit of natural, red mineral matter in Missouri. Hematite is iron oxide, Fe₂O₃, and has a close associate, limonite, which is yellow to brown in color, and has the chemical co

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Limonite

Limonite

Dark brown limonite. Stalactitic limonite from southeastern Missouri. Limonite is a heavy, yellow to brown, or brownish black mineral which always leaves a yellow to brown mark or streak when rubbed across a hard white rock or unglazed porcelain. It usually has a dull luster on a broken surface, and may vary from thumb-nail hardness to almost that of steel. The distinguishing test is its yellow to brown streak. In composition limonite is iron oxide which contains more or less water chemically co

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Paint Ore or Red Ochre

Paint Ore or Red Ochre

An intensely red-colored, clayey iron ore has been mined for paint pigment in several deposits in south central Missouri. It occurs in sink hole deposits like those containing fire clay. Brown ocher may be available from southeast Missouri....

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Iron Band Diaspore

Iron Band Diaspore

Shells of red or reddish brown iron oxide occur about cores of diaspore clay in some of those deposits south of the Missouri River. Previously this material had no value, but in the last few years it has been purchased for and shipped to a cement company, which used it in the manufacture of cement. Diaspore clay is discussed elsewhere in this pamphlet....

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Manganese Ore

Manganese Ore

Several manganese minerals make up the manganese ore which occurs to a limited extent in southeast Missouri, principally in Shannon, Reynolds, Carter, Iron, and Madison counties. Although the Missouri manganese minerals are usually heavy, black or nearly so, and have a black or brownish-black mark or streak, the identification of the individual minerals is difficult and should be left to a technically trained mineralogist. Manganese minerals are used in the chemical industry and in the productio

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Galena

Galena

Galena (“lead”) is a heavy, soft, somewhat brittle ore of lead. It has a brilliant metallic luster, and silvery gray color on a freshly broken surface. Where weathered it appears dull gray. It can be scratched with a knife, and breaks with surfaces at 90°, forming cubes. The unbroken, original crystal form of galena which has grown unobstructed in a vein opening is commonly cubical in habit or a modification thereof. It leaves a dark, lead-gray to black mark or streak when rubbed across unglazed

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Sphalerite

Sphalerite

Sphalerite (locally called Jack, Rosin Jack, Black Jack, Ruby Jack, Zinc, Rosin Spar) is a tan-brown, resinous, brown or brownish black mineral having a very high luster on its broken (cleavage) surfaces. Much of it so strongly resembles lump rosin that the term “Rosin Jack” is truly descriptive. Less commonly, a ruby red variety occurs as crystals perched on other sphalerite or on waste rock. Sphalerite is readily scratched with steel. Its chemical composition is zinc sulphide, ZnS—zinc 67 per

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Barite (“Tiff”)

Barite (“Tiff”)

Barite (“Tiff” in south east Missouri, Heavy Spar, Barytes) occurs in Missouri predominantly as a white, quite heavy, soft, non-metallic mineral which has a high luster on a freshly broken surface. Slightly bluish “glass” barite or “glass tiff” has been found in smaller quantity with the more abundant, opaque white material. The glassy barite may superficially resemble calcite or selenite gypsum, but in distinction, barite breaks or cleaves to surfaces joining at right angles and does not efferv

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Gypsum

Gypsum

Gypsum is a soft mineral which can be scratched easily with the finger or thumb-nail. It may be glassy or transparent, or may grade into an opaque white body, possibly stained by iron oxide, but it is always very soft. Of the three varieties of gypsum—selenite, alabaster, and satinspar—only the first two have been found in Missouri by the writer. The chemical composition of gypsum is CaSO₄·2H₂O. Transparent, flexible variety of gypsum (selenite). Fine-grained, white, opaque gypsum (alabaster). T

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Meteorites

Meteorites

Meteorites, the rock-like specimens which have come to our earth as sparkling meteors in the sky, are perhaps the most prized specimens which the average collector hopes to find, and perhaps more specimens are mistaken for meteorites than for any other geological substance. Meteorites are rare and not easy to find; they are also not easy to determine. The iron variety is usually a heavy, roughly-pitted, brown, tough, metallic, nickel alloy of iron. Therefore, a positive chemical test for nickel

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Gold

Gold

Gold is not known to occur in Missouri, except for very small quantities which have been carried into the state with the glacial deposits in the north half. Miners have searched carefully, and geologists have studied Missouri rocks intently, comparing them with the gold veins of the western states, but they find no promise of a gold deposit in Missouri. We have been favored with other geological products, but it is a waste of time to search for gold in Missouri....

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Silver

Silver

Silver has been recovered from ore in the Silver Mines area in Madison county and from the galena of southeastern Missouri. Except for occurrences within the igneous rock area and the lead mining regions, geologists do not expect to find additional silver ore deposits....

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Diamonds

Diamonds

No diamond has ever been found in native Missouri rock. It is possible for diamonds to have been carried into the state with the glacial deposits in the northern part, but the probability of finding one, if it did come in, is extremely remote. Diamonds do occur in one part of Arkansas, but those rocks are strikingly different from all Missouri rocks except in a few localities, having small areas about the size of one’s house, in the southeastern part of the state. The writer has received quartz

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Uranium Minerals

Uranium Minerals

Three uranium-containing minerals, tyuyamunite (pronounced tyew-yuh-moon-ite), possibly carnotite , and metatorbernite , have been found in Missouri but none has been mined commercially. Tyuyamunite and carnotite are canary yellow powdery minerals so similar in appearance they can be differentiated only by chemical and x-ray properties. Both minerals contain uranium, vanadium, oxygen, water, and one other element, which, if it is calcium, the mineral is tyuyamunite, but if it is potassium the mi

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Concretions

Concretions

A concretion is an aggregate of inorganic matter in the shape, roughly, of a ball, disc, rod, or irregular nodular body. Usually the aggregation or accumulation started around a small center grain or particle and continued in the growth of layers about it like the shells of an onion, or in the growth of needle-like fibers which radiate from the center like pins stuck into a spherical pin cushion. Concretions vary in size from buck-shot (buck-shot concretions in the soil) to oddities ten or twent

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Geodes

Geodes

A geode is usually a hollow, more or less spherical or ball-shaped shell of mineral and crystal growth which has formed within surrounding rock. Missouri geodes commonly vary in size from hickory nuts to small watermelons, although neither direction of variation is limited. They weather out abundantly at several localities in northeast Missouri from the so-called Warsaw formation, a limy shale. Here they are dark brown, rough and irregular on the outside, but where broken open show many brillian

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Fossils

Fossils

Fossils are also found and collected by persons who are interested in rocks and minerals. The varied remains of plants and animals long since petrified or replaced by mineral matter have stimulated the curiosity and become a source of enjoyment to many persons, from those who merely give a passing glance to the peculiar organic structures in the rocks to those who make a serious hobby or business of collecting and classifying the unreplaceable heritage from the ancient rocks. Fossils are interes

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Arrow Heads and Other Indian Artifacts

Arrow Heads and Other Indian Artifacts

Arrow heads, scrapers, rock knives and saws which were left by the Indians who formerly lived in Missouri may be found in moderate abundance in many parts of the state. Usually these artifacts are chert in its various colors, white, gray, mottled, reddish, or black (flint). See the discussion of chert on page 34 . Chert, because of its conchoidal fracture, lack of cleavage, resistance to chemical weathering, and superior hardness, is an exceptionally useful rock for making tools and weapons. Ham

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THE ROCKS OF MISSOURI

THE ROCKS OF MISSOURI

Geologists classify rocks into these groups: igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic. Representatives of all three have been described in the preceding pages. Arrowheads made from white, gray, pink, and black chert. (Courtesy of Mr. A. A. Jeffrey, Columbia, Mo.) Sedimentary rocks are those whose particles settled down through the air or water to form rocks in layers or beds; hence layered, bedded, or so-called stratified rocks are sedimentary rocks. For instance, the sand and mud settling out of the

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MINERALS OF MISSOURI

MINERALS OF MISSOURI

A mineral is characterized by a constancy of composition and of properties which sets it apart from rocks which vary widely. Minerals may be metallic, like pyrite, or non-metallic, like barite; they may be ore, like galena, or rock-forming, like quartz or feldspar; they may show crystal faces, or they may be fragments with rounded or broken surfaces. A favored definition teaches that “a mineral is a naturally occurring, inorganic substance having a definite chemical composition and definite phys

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Suggested Collateral Reading Material

Suggested Collateral Reading Material

How to Know the Minerals and Rocks, by Pearl; publisher, McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York. A Field Guide to Rocks and Minerals, by Pough; publisher, Houghton, Mifflin Co., Boston. Gemstones and Minerals: How and Where To Find Them, by Sinkankas; publisher, Van Nostrand, Princeton, New Jersey. Look for paper back editions of these and other books which may be widely available. The Common Fossils of Missouri, by A. G. Unklesbay, Missouri Handbook No. 4. Rocks and Minerals, Box, 29, Peekskill, N.Y. G

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