#Mineral database wants
2 messages in this thread
Hi,
I am diligently working on programming the mineral database. It is necessary to
learn a new programming "language" as well as finish the mineral data, edit,
etc.
Important questions come to mind, how will you use it? Originally, it was
created for personal use as a mineral data reference, and some simple searches
to help with IDing unknowns. I see three main uses:
1) A reference to the physical data of any mineral (presently 3,559 approved
mienrals; data includes: formula, system, group, color, opacity, luster,
streak, hardness, density/SG, No. of cleavages, cleavage info, fracture, habit,
and some general ino (fluorescence, magnetis, polymorphism, etc). If more
information is desired by many, it will have to wait for a revision (how much
desire is there for optical, x-ray, or other data?).
2) Simple searches for such things as all minerals containing Cu, or only a
couple characteristics.
3) Similar to 2, only use as a major aid in IDing minerals, searching on any up
most characteristics.
4 ????
Any other comments, suggestions, etc. are welcome.
Lanny
Hi, Lanny–
I had not paid attention to optical properties before, but can imagine an
amateur trying to use them (I believe one can buy sets of index-of-refraction
standard liquids for a quick test, though I have not priced them).
I suspect no one without an XRD machine will be interested in X-ray data, and
that sort of person (or institution) can afford a more expensive database (if
the XRD did not break them).
Crystal/cleavage angles would be nice, but you have the most important fields
already as far as I am concerned.
–Doug