You start by scratching it and seek it's hardness. When you find its hardness, compare it to another mineral with the same hardness. If they look exactly the same, and have the same arrangements of minerals, then they are the exact same mineral.
You start by scratching it and seek it's hardness. When you find its hardness, compare it to another mineral with the same hardness. If they look exactly the same, and have the same arrangements of minerals, then they are the exact same mineral.
One way is to start with mohs scale which references the ability of one mineral to scratch another.
Correct, a 5 hardness can scratch a 5 and below.
Geologists identify minerals that are too small to be seen in a hand specimen using powerful microscopes. Minerals are classified according to their physical properties such as color, streak, cleavage, hardness and crystal form.
There are two ways. One way is to buy a scratch test kit and follow the instructions. They will tell you to try to scratch minerals of certain hardnesses and find the hardest one it can scratch. For example, if it scratches a mineral with a hardness of 6 but not one with a hardness of 7, the hardness would be between 6 and 7. If you do not have one of those available, you can try scratching common objects. Your fingernail is 1.5, a penny is 2.5, a pocketknife blade is 5.0, window glass is 5.5, a steel file is 6.5, and quartz is 7.0.
nope
Bauxite, a rock and the main ore of aluminum, does not have a number on the Mohs scale of relative mineral hardness because it is not a mineral, but a combination of minerals.
The chief use of mimetite is as a collector's specimen, often creating attractive botryoidal crusts on the surface of the specimen.
Type Specimen
A minerals hardness is its relative ability to scratch or be scratched by other minerals. Diamond, for instance, can scratch all other minerals because of its hardness. Streak is the color of the mineral when powdered. This is usually accomplished by the streak test (swiping the mineral across an unglazed porcelain surface) which reveals a mineral's streak color, which may differ from the color of the specimen being tested.
Color, luster, hardness, and cleavage are physical properties that can be relatively easily determined in the field to help identify a mineral specimen. These properties can provide important clues about the mineral's composition and can help narrow down possible identification.
The Mohs scale is used to aid in quick field identification of minerals, along with other techniques. Mohs based the scale on ten minerals that are all readily available. As the hardest known naturally occurring substance, diamond is at the top of the scale. The hardness of a material is measured against the scale by finding the hardest material that the given material can scratch, and/or the softest material that can scratch the given material. For example, if some material is scratched by apatite but not by fluorite, its hardness on the Mohs scale would fall between 4 and 5. Hardness Mineral 1 Talc (Mg3Si4O10(OH)2) 2 Gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) 3 Calcite (CaCO3) 4 Fluorite (CaF2) 5 Apatite (Ca5(PO4)3(OH-,Cl-,F-) 6 Orthoclase (KAlSi3O8) 7 Quartz (SiO2) 8 Topaz (Al2SiO4(OH-,F-)2) 9 Corundum (Al2O3) 10 Diamond (C)