Minerals

Have you ever given any thought to what is a mineral?. Well that question once hunted me but now i know and i will tell you so you can learn yourself.So what is a mineral you ask yourself? A mineral is a solid that occurs naturally but it can also be made by an inorganic process. Every mineral has a crystal structure and a definite chemical composition.   Minerals are solid as I have already told you. There is a scale to measure their hardness. It is called the Mohs Hardness Scale after the Austrian called Fridrich Mohs who invented it in 1812. Now, you may ask me how can I figure out the hardness? Well, there is a scratch test. I can already hear you saying...So??? Every mineral can scratch a softer mineral and in turn be scratched by a harder one. Except ofcourse for the hardest mineral which can not be scratched this way. That mineral is called diamond. The scale has 10 levels of hardness. I've already told you about the hardest mineral. What do you think is the softest one? Any guesses?
Minerals have a crystal structure. It is a pattern that repeats over and over again, It is different for every crystal. It's really cool that you can recognize a mineral by it's streak color. The streak is the line left by scratching a mineral over a white surface. Even if the same mineral has different colors it's streak is always the same. Do you know that some minerals can split apart to form flat surfaces? Mica is one of them. Some minerals have special properties like conducting electricity or bending light and producing double images. Some of them even glow under UV light.