Utilizing Characteristics of Minerals to Identify Them

Most minerals can be portrayed and ordered by their novel actual properties: hardness, brilliance, shading, streak, explicit gravity, cleavage, break, and relentlessness.

Hardness

The capacity to oppose being damaged—or hardness—is perhaps the most helpful properties for distinguishing minerals. Hardness is controlled by the capacity of one mineral to scratch another. Federick Mohs, a German mineralogist, delivered a hardness scale (table 5) utilizing a bunch of ten standard minerals. The scale organizes the minerals arranged by expanding hardness. Each higher-numbered (more enthusiastically) mineral will scratch any mineral with a lower number (gentler).

A harsh proportion of mineral hardness can be made by gathering a unit of convenient items (table 6). A fingernail has a hardness going from 2 to 2.5, a penny is somewhat harder than 3, window glass goes from 5.5 to around 6 in hardness, and a blade cutting edge is by and large in the scope of 5 to 6.5.

Hardness Mineral Common field test

1 Talc Easily scratched with a fingernail

2 Gypsum Scratched by a fingernail (2.5)

3 Calcite Scratched by a penny (3)

4 Fluorite Difficult to scratch by a nail (4); scratched effectively by a blade (5)

5 Apatite Difficult to scratch with a blade (>5); scarcely scratches glass (5.5)

6 Feldspar Scratched by a steel document (6.5); effectively scratches glass

7 Quartz Scratches a steel document and glass

8 Topaz Difficult to test in the field

9 Corundum Difficult to test in the field

10 Diamond Difficult to test in the field