Feldspar

Feldspar is a group forming minerals that make up about 60% of the Earth's crust. The word feldspar is derived rom the German "feld" meaning "field" "spar" is a tern for a light colored minerals that break with a smooth serface. Feldspar usually appears as a white or light color and has a hardness of 6 on the Mohn's Scale of Hardness. It occurs in ingneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks, which is very prevalent in North Carolina.

It is commonly used in glassmaking, ceramics, and to a filler and extender in pain, plastics, and rubber. For glassmaking, alumina from the feldspar helps improve the products harness, durability, and resistance to corrosion by chemicals. For ceramics, the alkalic in the feldspar help lower the melting temperature of a mixture. The alkalies can be calcium oxide, potassium oxide, and sodium oxide. These components help bond the components together. For earth sciences and archeology feldspar is used for K-Ar dating, argon-argon dating, thermoluminescence dating, and optical dating.