what are the heavy minerals? Heavy minerals: are those which have specific gravity greater than quartz and feldspar. the specific gravity of quartz is about 2.65 and for feldspar t varies in between 2.50 to 2.78. (specific gravity can be calculated by taking the ratio of absolute density of the mineral and absolute density of water at 4*C.) heavy minerals also defined for practical purposes as all those minerals having specific gravity greater than that of Bromoform, which have specific gravity 2.87 at 20*C. bromoform is a brominated organic solvent. stability of heavy minerals; least stable : barite, augite, apatite, olivine etc. most stable : zircon, tourmaline, rutile, garnet. Heavy minerals are useful in determination of provenance. before going into the details of how heavy minerals are used to determine the nature of provenance, lets get a brief idea of provenance. provenance: the literal meaning of the this word is "to origin from ", tha
where Geology is easy