Physical and other properties of

minerals

UNIT 2
Physical Properties of Minerals
 Minerals have definite crystalline structures and chemical
compositions that give them unique sets of physical and
chemical properties shared by all samples of that mineral.

 For example, all specimens of halite have the same

hardness, the same density, and break in a similar manner.

 Because a mineral’s internal structure and chemical

composition are difficult to determine without the aid of
sophisticated tests and equipment, the more easily
recognized physical properties are frequently used in
identification.

 Physical properties of the minerals in hand specimen can

be broadly divided into 3 categories: 1) Optical properties
2) Crystal shape/habit and 3) Mineral strength
Physical Properties of Minerals
 Optical Properties of Minerals
(LUSTER)
 Of the many optical properties of minerals, their luster, their ability to transmit light, their
color, and their streak are most frequently used for mineral identification.

 LUSTER. The appearance or quality of light reflected from the surface of a mineral is
 known as luster.

 Minerals that have the appearance of metals, regardless of color, are said to have a
metallic luster .

 Most minerals have a nonmetallic luster and are described using various adjectives such as
vitreous or glassy.

 Other nonmetallic minerals are described as having a dull or earthy luster (a dull
appearance like soil) or a pearly luster (such as a pearl).

 Some others exhibit a silky luster (like satin cloth) or a greasy luster (as though coated in
oil).
Optical Properties of Minerals
(LUSTER)
 Optical Properties of Minerals
(ABILITY TO TRANSMIT LIGHT)

 THE ABILITY TO TRANSMIT LIGHT. Another optical property used in

the identification of minerals is the ability to transmit light.

 When no light is transmitted, the mineral is described as opaque.

 When light, but not an image, is transmitted through a mineral it is

said to be translucent.

 When both light and an image are visible through the sample, the
mineral is described as transparent.
 Optical Properties of Minerals
(ABILITY TO TRANSMIT LIGHT)

Transparent Mineral
Translucent Mineral

Opaque Mineral
 Optical Properties of Minerals
(COLOR)
 COLOR. Although color is generally the most
conspicuous characteristic of any mineral, it is
considered a diagnostic property of only a few
minerals.

 Slight impurities in the common mineral quartz,

for example, give it a variety of tints including
pink, purple, yellow, white, gray, and even black.

 Other minerals, such as tourmaline, also exhibit

a variety of hues, with multiple colors
sometimes occurring in the same sample.

 Thus, the use of color as a means of

identification is often ambiguous or even
misleading.
 Optical Properties of Minerals
(STREAK)
 STREAK. The color of the mineral in powdered form, called streak, is often
useful in identification.

 A mineral’s streak is obtained by rubbing it across a streak plate (a piece of

unglazed porcelain) and observing the color of the mark it leaves.

 Although the color of a mineral may vary from sample to sample, its streak is
usually consistent in color.

 Streak can also help distinguish between minerals with metallic luster and
those with nonmetallic luster.

 Metallic minerals generally have a dense, dark streak, whereas minerals

with nonmetallic luster typically have a light colored streak.
Optical Properties of Minerals
(STREAK)
 Crystal shape/habit
 Mineralogists use the term crystal shape or habit to
refer to the common or characteristic shape of a
crystal or aggregate of crystals.

 A few minerals exhibit somewhat regular polygons

that are helpful in their identification.

 For example, magnetite crystals sometimes occur as

octahedrons, garnets often form dodecahedrons.

 Halite and fluorite crystals tend to grow as cubes or

near cubes.

 While most minerals have only one common habit,

a few have two or more characteristic crystal
shapes such as the pyrite.
 Mineral Strength
(TENACITY)
 Mineral Strength: How easily minerals break or deform under stress is determined by the
type and strength of the chemical bonds that hold the crystals together.

 Mineralogists use terms including tenacity, hardness, cleavage, and fracture to describe
mineral strength and how minerals break when stress is applied.

 TENACITY. The term tenacity describes a mineral’s toughness, or its resistance to breaking
or deforming.

 Minerals that are ionically bonded, such as fluorite and halite, tend to be brittle and
shatter into small pieces when struck.

 By contrast, minerals with metallic bonds, such as native copper, are malleable, or easily
hammered into different shapes.

 Minerals, including gypsum and talc, that can be cut into thin flakes are described as
sectile.

 Still others, notably the micas, are elastic and will bend and snap back to their original
shape after the stress is released.
 Mineral Strength
(HARDNESS)
 HARDNESS. One of the most useful diagnostic properties is hardness,
a measure of the resistance of a mineral to abrasion or scratching.

 This property is determined by rubbing a mineral of unknown

hardness against one of known hardness, or vice versa.

 A numerical value of hardness can by obtained by using the Mohs

scale of hardness, which consists of 10 minerals arranged in order
from 1 (softest) to 10 (hardest).

 It should be noted that the Mohs scale is a relative ranking, and it

does not imply that mineral number 2, gypsum, is twice as hard as
mineral 1, talc. In fact, gypsum is only slightly harder than talc.

 In the laboratory, other common objects can be used to determine

the hardness of a mineral.
 Mineral Strength
(HARDNESS)
 These include a human fingernail,
which has a hardness of about 2.5, a
copper penny (3.5), and a piece of glass
(5.5). The mineral gypsum, which has
ahardness of 2, can be easily scratched
with a fingernail.

 On the other hand, the mineral calcite,

which has a hardness of 3, will scratch a
fingernail but will not scratch glass.

 Quartz, one of the hardest common

minerals, will easily scratch glass.

 Diamonds, hardest of all, scratch

anything, including other diamonds.
 Mineral Strength
(CLEAVAGE)
 CLEAVAGE. In the crystal structure of many
minerals, some atomic bonds are weaker than
others.

 It is along these weak bonds that minerals tend

to break when they are stressed.

 Cleavage is the tendency of a mineral to break

(cleave) along planes of weak bonding.

 Not all minerals have cleavage, but those that

do can be identified by the relatively smooth,
flat surfaces that are produced when the
mineral is broken.

 The simplest type of cleavage is exhibited by

the micas .Because these minerals have very
weak bonds in one direction, they cleave to
form thin, flat sheets.
 Mineral Strength
(CLEAVAGE)
 Some minerals have excellent cleavage in
one, two, three, or more directions,
whereas others exhibit fair or poor
cleavage, and still others have no
cleavage at all.

 When minerals break evenly in more than

one direction, cleavage is described by
the number of cleavage directions and
the angle(s) at which they meet.

 Each cleavage surface that has a different

orientation is counted as a different
direction of cleavage. For example, some
minerals cleave to form six-sided cubes.

 Because cubes are defined by three

different sets of parallel planes that
intersect at 90-degree angles, cleavage is
described as three directions of cleavage
that meet at 90 degrees.
 Mineral Strength
(CLEAVAGE)
 Basal cleavage

 Cleavage exhibited on a horizontal plane of the

mineral by way of its base. Minerals with basal
cleavage can sometimes be "peeled". An
example of basal cleavage are the mica
minerals.

 Cubic cleavage

 Cleavage exhibited on minerals of the isometric

crystal system that are crystallized as cubes. In
this method of cleavage, small cubes evenly
break off of an existing cube. An example is
Galena.

 Octahedral cleavage

 Cleavage exhibited on minerals of the isometric

crystal system that are crystallized as
octahedrons. In this method of cleavage, flat,
triangular "wedges" peel off of an existing
octahedron. An example is Fluorite.
 Mineral Strength
(CLEAVAGE)

 Prismatic cleavage

 Cleavage exhibited on some prismatic

minerals in which a crystal cleaves as thin,
vertical, prismatic crystals off of the
original prism. An example is Feldspar .

 Rhombohedral cleavage

 Cleavage exhibited on minerals

crystallizing in the hexagonal/trigonal
crystal system as rhombohedrons, in which
small rhombohedrons break off of the
existing rhombohedron. An example is
Calcite.
 Mineral Strength
(FRACTURE)
 FRACTURE. Minerals having chemical
bonds that are equally, or nearly equally,
strong in all directions exhibit a property
called fracture.

 When minerals fracture, most produce

uneven surfaces and are described as
exhibiting irregular fracture.

 However, some minerals, such as quartz, • Conchoidal fracture - breaks along smooth
break into smooth, curved surfaces curved surfaces.
resembling broken glass.
• Fibrous and splintery - similar to the way
 Such breaks are called conchoidal
fractures. wood breaks.

 Still other minerals exhibit fractures that • Hackly - jagged fractures with sharp edges.
produce splinters or fibers that are
referred to as splintery and fibrous • Uneven or Irregular - rough irregular
fracture, respectively surfaces.
 Density and Specific Gravity
 Density, an important property of matter, is defined as mass per unit volume.

 Mineralogists often use a related measure called specific gravity to describe the
density of minerals.

 Specific gravity is a number representing the ratio of a mineral’s weight to the

weight of an equal volume of water.

 Most common rock-forming minerals have a specific gravity of between 2 and 3.

 For example, quartz has a specific gravity of 2.65.

 By contrast, some metallic minerals such as pyrite, native copper, and magnetite
are more than twice as dense and thus have more than twice the specific gravity
as quartz.

 Galena, an ore of lead, has a specific gravity of roughly 7.5, whereas the specific
gravity of 24-karat gold is approximately 20.
 Other properties of Minerals
 Magnetism: Magnetism is the characteristic that allows
a mineral to attract or repel other magnetic materials.
 Diamagnetic minerals- minerals not attracted by a
magnet.
 Paramagnetic minerals - minerals attracted by a
magnet.
 Magnetite (Fe3O4) – strongly magnetic.
 Ilmenite (FeTiO3) – can be weakly magnetic.

 Certain minerals will effervesce (bubble) when dilute

hydrochloric acid is applied to the surface.
 This is characteristic of those minerals containing the
carbonate anion
 CaCO3 + 2HCl ‡ Ca2+ + H2O + 2Cl- + CO2 (gas).
 The amount of effervescence depends upon how
soluble the mineral is (calcite vs. dolomite)
 Other properties of Minerals
 Taste: This technique can only be applied to those
minerals which are soluble.
 Care must be taken in nature, for some minerals
contain arsenic, lead, and other toxic elements.
 Acid or sour: sulfuric acid, indicates the presence of
sulfur
 Alkaline: potash
 Astringent: (puckering) Alum
 Bitter: Epsom or bitter salts
 Cooling: saltpeter (NaNO3)
 Metallic: decomposed FeS2, brassy taste
 Saline: Salty, NaCl

 Some minerals exhibit special optical properties.

 For example, when a transparent piece of calcite is
placed over printed text, the letters appear twice.
 This optical property is known as double refraction
 Other properties of Minerals
 Fluorescence: The fluorescent minerals are those that emit visible
light when activated by invisible ultraviolet light (UV), X-rays and/or
electron beams. Example is Gypsum

 Phosphorescence is the ability of a mineral to glow after the initial

activating ultraviolet light is removed. Example is Fluorite

 Thermoluminescence is a property of some minerals to glow when

they are heated. Example is Calcite

 Triboluminescence is a property of some minerals to glow when they

are crushed, struck, scratched or even rubbed in some cases.
Examples are Calcite and Fluorite