You probably already know that ice is a mineral. But did you know what is its most important use? According to the second edition of Introduction to Mineralogy by William Nesse its most important use is “to cool the drinks that slake the thirst of geologists after long hot days in the field”.
I am reading this book and highly recommend it if you want to strengthen your knowledge in mineralogy. It has good humor here and there but perhaps the most valuable aspect is that it is clearly written. It isn’t easy to make complicated topic understandable.
What I also like is the author’s unique and refreshing approach. I do not feel that I’ve read the same story many times from other books. Have you ever thought that ice as snow is sediment, ice in a glacier is a metamorphic rock and ice that covers lakes in winter is an igneous rock? Of course, this is there at least partly to provoke readers but such thoughts make the book entertaining and fun to read.
Nesse is especially strong in optical mineralogy. Almost 50 pages are devoted to this rather complex topic but in my experience this book or better yet “Introduction to Optical Mineralogy” from the same author are the best you can find if you are serious about getting to know this topic.
I have lots of this stuff outside at the moment but unfortunately it will melt as soon as I bring it in. So the only approach to make photos like this is to work outside which I am not tempted to do at the moment (‒20 °C). However, a man named Wilson Bentley photographed snowflakes more than a century ago. These are superb quality photos for its time. I doubt that I could add anything to it. So I am using his photos of beautiful hexagonal ice crystals and recommend to visit a website showing many more of his photos: snowflakebentley.com
To find out more about snowflakes, check this website.