Hereof, how can you tell if one mineral is harder than another?
If it leaves a scratch, the mineral is softer than talc. If it doesn't, the mineral is harder than talc. Continue doing this with the harder standard minerals - gypsum, calcite and so on. If, for example, your mineral can be scratched by fluorite but not by calcite, it will have a hardness of about three and a half.
One may also ask, which mineral is harder? Diamond
Keeping this in view, how do you determine the hardness of a mineral?
It is a property by which minerals may be described relative to a standard scale of 10 minerals known as the Mohs scale of hardness. The degree of hardness is determined by observing the comparative ease or difficulty with which one mineral is scratched by another or by a steel tool.
How do you test the hardest mineral?
One of the most important tests for identifying mineral specimens is the Mohs Hardness Test. This test compares the resistance of a mineral to being scratched by ten reference minerals known as the Mohs Hardness Scale (see table at left).
