Scholarly record

MINS (MINERAL IDENTIFIER FOR NON-SPECIALISTS): A NEW MINERALOGICAL APPLICATION FOR MOBILE PHONES

Dimitrios Papoulis

Abstract

A new mineralogical application for mobile phones and tablets was created named MINS (Mineral Identifier for Non-Specialists). Android Studio was employed in order to implement it in Java for Android devices and is compatible with versions starting from 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich). MINS is an application for macroscopic identification of the most common minerals (about 99%) that exist on the upper crust of the earth. The user has the choice of identifying a mineral or to see a list with the most common minerals. In the list 48 minerals/or group of minerals exist. For each one some pictures, macroscopic characteristics, common uses and potential health hazards from the interaction with the human are given. For the identification of an unknown mineral, five specific filters are used and each one corresponds to a specific macroscopic property. More specifically, the user has to choose the color, the cleavage, the hardness, the metallic or non metallic luster and some special characteristics. The user has the possibility of avoiding some characteristics (skip/not sure bottom). After every choice the number of the possible remaining minerals decreases. If the majority of the properties are identified, just one mineral will be left, leading thus to successful mineral identification. If the user skipped some characteristics/or the unknown mineral has common characteristics with more than one mineral (in the list), then more than one possible mineral will be remaining but the user has the ability to compare pictures of the application with the unknown sample. Also, the details of the remaining list?s minerals will help the user to reach the final identification of the unknown mineral. MINS is a new application that gives the opportunity to every user (non-specialists, non-geologists, etc.) to identify minerals that everyone can easily find to the environment (e.g. countryside, beach, etc.), while helping users to know the uses of minerals in their everyday life as well as the potential hazards that minerals can cause in order to act accordingly. This application can familiarize more people with the environment and make them appreciate it. Additionally this application can make natural sciences more like a game than a rather difficult topic.

Publication Impact Profile

• Citations
• CrossRef - Citation Indexes: 1
• Scopus - Citation Indexes: 1

• Captures
• Mendeley - Readers: 6

PLUMX see details

DOI resolver: doi.org/10.5593/sgem2019/5.4/s22.028

Publication details

Back to publication list