Structure of Earth Materials
MIT OpenCourseWare's introduction to crystalline structure, crystal chemistry, and bonding in rock-forming minerals. The course connects crystal structure and symmetry to measurable physical properties such as refractive index, elastic modulus, and seismic velocity, and surveys how silicate, oxide, and metallic minerals are distributed across planetary interiors and surfaces. It works through the formation processes behind that distribution and answers concrete material questions, like why diamond is hard and why mica cleaves into thin sheets. Materials include MIT's lecture notes, problem sets, and readings from the original course, available under a Creative Commons license for self-paced study. No certificate is offered, but the full curriculum used in MIT's Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences department is provided free for anyone studying mineralogy or planetary materials science.