Detecting Minerals through chemistry

[Tetraspace]

What is a way to detect minerals through rocks? For example soaking water in some rocks cause the rock to change a certain color to indicate that it has a certain mineral. I'm doing magnesium in lava flows in the island of Hawaii. Yes I live in Hawaii. If you could give me some ideas that would be good. Thanks

 

[chem_tr]

First man, don't mess with lava too much, it is hot

Well, since we don't have such experience in our hometown, it is new for me, but don't forget that iron is very plentiful in lava, so any mineral is very likely to be of iron.

 

[Tetraspace]

Well we're only testing hardned lava rocks and some crystallization of sulfur. Secondly someone already took the iron project.

 

[Gokul43201]

1. What grade are you in, and do you have access to chemicals in your lab ?

2. Grinding little bits of the rock into a powder helps a lot.

3. Find out the effect of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium carbonate (Na2CO3) on magnesium (Mg 2+) ions. Google might help.