A ray of light has an angle of incidence of 30.1 degrees on a block of quartz and an angle of refractionof 20.3 degrees/What is the index of refraction for this block of quartz?
Quartz is the most common mineral. It is also very durable at the earths surface. The easiest way to mine it would be to go to the beach with a bucket and spade. If the sand is a yellow colour, it will be quartz; all the less durable minerals will have weathered or eroded away. If it is a quartz crystal you are looking to mine, try hitting the rock around it with a hammer. Stone age man found that the quartz (in the form of flint) was easy to mine from chalk).
There are two main types of quartz mining. In developing countries like Brazil and Madagascar it is collected manually either from loose material on the ground or from shallow quartz veins with pickaxes and shovels. Brazilian miners are quite often farmers who collect quartz to supplement their income - they're known as Garimpieros. This is how most decorative quartz is mined. Some quartz for industrial use is mined this way and is called lascas and is arguably the best source in terms of quality. However, most quartz for industrial applications now comes from large granitic bodies -quite often pegmatites- as these can contain a lot of free quartz. These are blasted out and then crushed, milled and purified to extract the quartz. Suitable deposits of this type are few and far between despite quartz being such a common mineral. The hazards associated with quartz mining parallels those that are associated with other mining activities like coal or and ore
