Is it a Mineral?

I happen to really like rocks. I'm mostly drawn to colors and unique shapes. That being said, I don't feel like I have fully grasped the identification of the different types of minerals. It's still about the shapes and colors for me. If there is one thing that will get me in trouble in my tests, it will be identifying  rocks and minerals by their composition. So in trepidation I went out to my yard to scrounge up some rocks from my past treasure hunts. I could have sworn I had an obsidian rock that I found somewhere, but I couldn't find it. I probably stashed it in a flower pot and it won't resurface until I don't need it anymore But I did find these others.

I identified this one easily because of its color. Living in a mining town where copper is extracted one would expect to see this kind of color around. There is copper in this rock, but it is a a weakly structured rock. As you can see, a piece broke off just from me handling it.

In this rock I will identify what I can see. First, the colors vary.  There is a rust color throughout, with some gray, both of which are are not particularly shiny, but I assume they are metallic. In the sun there are refractory particulates that wink back at me, indicating some form of crystal. Could it be quartz?

The shape of the rock doesn't show any kind of cleavage or obvious fractures, but when I look at the stripe of color running across it it does look like a natural cleavage point...so I hit it with a hammer. It was really hard to do. I kept thinking like Yzma in Emperor's New Groove, Hit. It. On. The. Head!" Short story, it didn't break along that line. I did manage to chip a bit off along the line, but the rock was too hard to do much damage. What does this mean about the composition of the rock? I'm not sure.

This rock is of interest to me because of the marvelous green strips of color. Is it mineral? By smell and taste...I don't think so. It tastes and smells like dirt. It has no specific coloration that I can identify, but it does have tiny little sparkles throughout the grey rock. Interestingly, the green substance has a different quality to it. The sun reflects off of it more than the grey. What do you think about that? I think it's kind of fun.

                                                                                                                                                                      

This little beauty makes me happy. The one side is totally ugly, but the opposite side is a variation of colors and textures. The rusty spot is somewhat porous and the bumpy parts look and feel smooth. You can see the recessed part on the right has crystals. This funky rock is my favorite. If I were to name it I would think it was some kind of chalcedony; a calcite mineral formation.

These rocks caught my eye because they both appear to have been broken by way of cleavage. I tried the streak test on them and it came away with white, so that was a bust. No clues there. They are both hard rocks. Unlike sandstone, they don't crumble when played with. There are no sparkly little surprises winking back at me either. So this one is boring. And I still don't know what it is made of. My guess, it's not a mineral. Just saying.

This was fun. I enjoyed trying to apply what we studied this week. I hope with time I will become more competent in identifying minerals and rocks made with minerals. I hope you all are also enjoying this subject too.