What's the difference between glass and malachite? Why it is so that glass items are now forged from malachite? Which are the qualities which has made the malachite to be better than original glass?
In Morrowind we had ebony and glass mines and we were able to find raw glass and raw ebony. Now in Skyrim we have ebony ore but not glass ore, instead of it we have malachite ore. What has happen to glass crafting in these 200 years when they have decided to use malachite instead of glass?
I haven't find any in-game-books about it and these questions are bothering me until I'll find it out.

Dunno. Maybe there isn't volcanic glass in Skyrim? Or maybe the thought of carrying around raw glass is too unpleasant? But remember, it's just a game.

Maybe the developers just decided to call it malachite

They probably just decided to change the name because they didn't like the name raw glass in Morrowind.

I started to say "because you can't actually mine glass," but there is obsidian (which is volcanic glass) so I suppose it's technically possible (though does not look at all like the glass weapons. Malachite is at least green).

...what you can't actually mine is Ebony, which is wood. Go figure.

If I were to actually explain it in an in-universe way, I'd say that the disaster that befell Morrowind hampered further glass mining, and the material they call malachite was the best available substitute.
But really, it's just a name.

Also see this thread: http://www.gamesas.com/topic/1301919-what-the-hell-is-malachite/

There's a lot of stuff regarding smithing and ores that don't make much sense in Skyrim. For example: quicksilver ore and ingots. Quicksilver is another term for liquid mercury. Doesn't form ingots very well. Then there's steel. Made from combining iron ore and... corundum ore? What the heck is corundum? It's the material sapphires and rubies are comprised of. So how exactly is it used to make steel? Who knows.

All I can guess is that the people at Bethesda didn't think it through very well before going with some of this stuff.

It's just game but when something changes in lore I want to read a book about it. For this far I haven't found any in-game-book about glass crafting.

I doubt they consider it a lore issue. This isn't a question very important if you compare it to things like "Why are the Stormcloaks fighting the Imperials?" or "What happened during the last 200 years?"

A lot of the names don't make sense with how they work. But the system behind it works (excluding exploits) so they don't care. Maybe Glass was just supposed to be called Malachite in the first place but they never bothered to change it.

Malachite is the proper name for raw glass in the Elder Scrolls.

Well I don't see problems in these because they are just part of the game's lore which is not forced to follow the realism of our world. But the thing which bothers me is why they change something which already is part of TES lore and they are not giving even a book about it. And if they have to change it's name why they are giving it's a name "malachite"? It sounds like Malacath which makes it to sound more like material for Orcish crafting than glass crafting. I can't see any sense in it, why can't it just be glass ore as it should be or at least something more senseable like green obsidian?

From a geological stand point, glass is not something that is "mined" but instead is something that is made. Like steel, which is also not mined but made from iron. The primary ingredient in glass is quartz or rather SiO2 which is called Silica.

The thing is that glass would make a poor armor.

As for their choice to use Malachite in the game? Could be because it is a 'glass like' mineral that is comprised of copper and carbonate. Could be because of it can be a fibrous mineral. A fibrous copper carbonate material sounds like it would make a decent armor. Sometimes simply sounding like it could, is good enough.

Personally, I think it would've been cool if the glass armor was black like ebony and the raw material was obsidian. Since glass is ~75% SiO2 with other compounds added in, and Obsidian has the same % of silica with Magnesium Oxide and Iron Oxide added in. Plus it would just look cooler too.

ebony in nirn is obsidian

Maybe the metals are formed differently in the world of Nirn: or it could be an entire different make up with something relating to the world.

Gameplay reasons.

All we can do is try and invent good reasons why it does not conflict lore.
I like the one about Morrowind-style raw glass not being available in Skyrim and this is their substitute.

Very true.

I am not going to bring real world compositions into these games.

I realize, I was just continuing in the vein of "realism arguments" lol. Though once you get that far, glass makes really [censored] armor, period. xD

There is a book on this in the game explaining it, called the light armor challenge, find it, read it, understand a little more.

Yup


Only book I remember coming across was called The Armorer's Challenge. Which talks of ebony armor.

a rose by any other name?

edit thats actually kinda vague, so what if the nords call glass malchiate, it is still glass armor right?

well, people do use different words for different things, in fact english people say "hate" but the french say deteste (well, french is more complicated than but you get the point)

The ores are supposed to be mostly fabulous ones like Mithril in Tolkien's books.

"Malachite" is some sort of volcanic glass-like metal, and "ebony" is also a metal not wood.

There is an in-game book called Light Armor Forging which says armor "glass" is actually a metal and not the glass you find in windows.

Corundum (rubies and sapphires) is aluminum oxide. Wikipedia says corundum (aluminum oxide) and hematite (iron oxide) possess identical crystalline structures. I'm not a chemist or a metallurgist, so I have no idea what the significance of that is. But it seems like it must have something to do with it.

I've never heard of anyone melting rubies and sapphires though.

That book simply classifies glass as being metallic simply due to the materials strength and high melting point. It doesn't actually say that the material used in glass armor is a metal. It also gives quicksilver a melting point, I'm assuming, far above room temperature. It's also displayed as a solid ingot in game. When in RL, quicksilver refers to Mercury which is already a liquid metal at room temperature and doesn't even become a solid until almost -40C (-40F).

Huh, I had long forgotten that -40 was when both temperature scales matched up.

The book also says that they use moonstone in the crafting of glass armor for strength.

man, I wish I had access to the equipment, I'd get myself enough to try and pound out a hunting knife.