Minerals are identified by properties such as color, hardness, luster, streak, crystal structure, and cleavage. Some minerals are similar and require other properties to distinguish them. Color, luster, and hardness are easily tested, while crystal structure describes the composition and shape of the mineral. Other properties include transparency and specific gravity, and some methods require specialized equipment.
There are a number of properties used to identify and define minerals, but the most recognizable and commonly used properties include color, hardness, luster, streak, crystal structure, and cleavage. Other properties that are sometimes used include smell, taste, and magnetism. There are a number of minerals that are very similar if not identical when profiled according to the first list of properties. In these cases it is necessary to use other types of properties to distinguish them. There are a number of minerals that appear, to the naked eye, to be nearly identical. This is the case of gold and pyrite, also known as “fool’s gold”, which can be identified by testing the properties of minerals that are not evident to the naked eye.
Some of the first mineral properties used to identify minerals are color, luster, and hardness. These are all properties that can be tested with little or no equipment. Color is something that can be easily judged by simply looking at the mineral and comparing it to the color of other minerals. Luster refers to a mineral’s ability to reflect light. An opaque mineral, for example, has very little sheen, while a shiny mineral like hematite has a near-mirror sheen.
Hardness can be tested by applying pressure to the mineral. Hardness is one of the properties of minerals that can be evaluated according to an established scale, the Mohs scale. The Mohs scale goes from one to 10, talc is calculated as one and diamond is calculated as 10. This scale rates how difficult it is to scratch the surface of a mineral.
Crystal structure is one of the properties of minerals that describes the composition of the mineral both at the molecular level and on a larger scale visible to the naked eye. The crystalline structure of a mineral defines how atoms, ions or molecules are arranged and joined together. It is also responsible for the shape the crystal takes as it forms.
Other properties of minerals include toughness, transparency, diaphanousness, and specific gravity. All mineral properties can be tested and evaluated in various ways. Some of these methods, as described above, are pretty straightforward. There are others that are quite complex and require one or more specialized pieces of equipment.
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