GEOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -The Mohs Hardness Scale is used as a convenient way to help identify minerals. A mineral’s hardness is a measure of its relative resistance to scratching, measured by scratching the mineral against another substance of known hardness on the Mohs Hardness Scale.

Detailed explanation-2: -In general, Mohs invented a scale of hardness based on how one mineral scratched another. The Mohs’ scale is a not a linear scale. Instead it ranks gems on a relative scale based on their scratch hardness.

Detailed explanation-3: -The Mohs Hardness Scale is a set of ten reference minerals (numbered 1 through 10) that are used to determine the relative hardness of minerals and other objects. In this test the hardness of a mineral is defined as its “resistance to being scratched".

Detailed explanation-4: -For measuring the hardness of a mineral, several common objects that can be used for scratching are helpful, such as a fingernail, a copper coin, a steel pocketknife, glass plate or window glass, the steel of a needle, and a streak plate (an unglazed black or white porcelain surface).

Detailed explanation-5: -The Mohs scale of mineral hardness is an ordinal scale that tests the hardness of minerals based on their ability to scratch softer materials. The Mohs scale runs from 1 (softest) to 10 (hardest). Talc has a Mohs hardness of 1, while diamond has a hardness of 10.