1 / 8

Identifying Minerals

Learn how to identify minerals based on their unique properties like hardness, streak, and luster. Understand the Mohs Hardness Scale and how to determine a mineral's streak color for accurate identification. Discover the different luster types and characteristic examples. Enhance your mineral identification skills with practical guidance and valuable insights.

josephfox
Download Presentation

Identifying Minerals

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Identifying Minerals • Each mineral has its own specific properties that can be used to identify it, this is due to the fact that each mineral has its own unique make-up. • Hardness- Mohs Hardness Scale • Streak • Luster

  2. Identifying Minerals • Each mineral has its own specific properties that can be used to identify it.

  3. Hardness- Mohs Hardness Scale • Hardness (how hard a mineral is) is one of the best properties that can be used to help identify a mineral • Mohs Hardness Scale ranks 10 minerals from softest to hardest, Talc is softest and Diamond is hardest

  4. Hardness- Mohs Hardness Scale http://www.realgems.org/pic/mohs%20en.jpg Our textbook lists Feldspar for 6

  5. Streak • Streak tells the color of a mineral’s powder. To find the streak of a mineral you rub the mineral against an unglazed tile called a streak plate.

  6. Streak

  7. Streak Is this Gold? How do you know?

  8. Luster • Luster describes how a mineral reflects light from its surface. Such as: • DescriptionExamples • Glassy Quartz • Silky Gypsum • Greasy Talc, some Quartz • Metallic Gold, Pyrite, Galena etc • Earthy Kaolin • Waxy some Serpentine • Pearly Gypsum, some Talc • Resinous Amber • Brilliant Diamond • Dull Graphite

More Related