What are 4 other properties to help identify minerals and give examples?

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2026-02-12 23:30

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In addition to color, four other properties to help identify minerals are hardness, luster, streak, and cleavage. Hardness measures a mineral's resistance to scratching, exemplified by the Mohs scale, where talc is the softest (1) and diamond is the hardest (10). Luster describes how a mineral reflects light; for example, quartz has a vitreous luster, while gold has a metallic luster. Streak refers to the color of a mineral's powder, as seen when a mineral is scraped on a ceramic plate, with hematite leaving a reddish-brown streak, and cleavage indicates how a mineral breaks along specific planes, as demonstrated by mica, which splits into thin sheets.

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