Mineral Wells, city (1990 pop. 14,870), Palo Pinto and Parker counties, N Tex.; inc. 1882. Aluminum products, bottled mineral water, clothing, and pharmaceuticals are produced, and there is ga...

Mineral, dietary, any of a group of inorganic elements that are essential to humans and animals for normal body function. In nutrition, minerals are those elements for which the body's require...

Mineral water, spring water containing various mineral salts, especially the carbonates, chlorides, phosphates, silicates, sulfides, and sulfates of calcium, iron, lithium, magnesium, potassiu...

Asbestos, common name for any of a variety of silicate minerals within the amphibole and serpentine groups that are fibrous in structure and more or less resistant to acid and fire. Chrysotile...

Flint, variety of quartz that commonly occurs in rounded nodules and whose crystal structure is not visible to the naked eye. Flint is dark gray, smoky brown, or black in color; pale gray flin...

Western Federation of Miners (WFM), a radical labor union that organized the miners and smelter workers of the Rocky Mountain states. Created in 1893 by the merger of several local miners' uni...

Gem, commonly, a mineral or organic substance, cut and polished and used as an ornament. Gems also are used as seals (items of assurance) and as talismans (good-luck charms). For birthstones, ...

Biotite, iron-rich variety of phlogopite, most abdunant of the mica minerals.

Azurite, blue mineral, the basic carbonate of copper, occurring in monoclinic crystals or masses that range from transparent to translucent and opaque. It is usually associated with malachite,...

Cleavage, tendency of many minerals to split along definite smooth planar surfaces determined by their crystal structure. The directions of these surfaces are related to weaknesses in the atom...