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A scientist was in the field when he saw a mineral sample. He wanted to determine the relative hardness of the mineral, so he conducted scratch tests. He summarized his results in a table. A 2 column table with 4 rows. The first column is labeled Mineral with known hardness with entries: Chalcopyrite, pyrite, Orthoclase, Quartz. Second column is labeled Was a scratch produced? with entries: Yes, Yes, Yes, No. What conclusion can you make about the hardness of the mineral?.

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marianaegarciaperedo

The mineral hardness depends on its resistance to being scratched. Mohs scale is used to determine the hardness of an unknown mineral. The unknown mineral is harder than Orthoclase, but not harder than Quartz.

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The hardness of a mineral is its resistance to being scratched or marked on the surface by another material.

Several elements are used to test the hardness of a mineral, like another mineral of known hardness.

Many different scales can be used to identify the mineral. However, the most commonly used is the Mohs scale.

Let us say that you have two minerals. You already know which mineral is one of them and its hardness.

  • If the unknown mineral scratches the known mineral, means that the first one is harder than the second one.

  • But if the unknown mineral does not get to scratch the known one, it means they are equally hard, or the known mineral is harder than the unknown one.

In the exposed example, the table must be as follows

    Mineral                     Was a scratch produced?              

Chalcopyrite                               YES

pyrite                                           YES

Orthoclase                                  YES                                          

Quartz                                          NO                                            

Quartz is the hardest of these minerals. Its hardness level is 7 according to the Mohs scale.

Because scratches were produced using Chalcopyrite, Pyrite, and Orthoclase, we can assume that the unknown mineral is harder than these three ones.

However, no scratch was produced using quartz, suggesting that the unknown mineral is between orthoclase and quartz in the Mohs scale.

The unknown mineral is harder than Orthoclase, but not harder than Quartz. It is between 6 and 7 hardness levels.

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You can learn more about the Mohs scale at

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