Mohs scale of mineral hardness

The Mohs scale of mineral hardness is a qualitative

ordinal scale that characterizes the scratch resistance of
various minerals through the ability of a harder material
to scratch a softer material. It was created in 1812 by the
German geologist and mineralogist Friedrich Mohs and
is one of several denitions of hardness in materials science, some of which are more quantitative.[1] The method
of comparing hardness by seeing which minerals can visibly scratch others, however, is of great antiquity, having
been mentioned by Theophrastus in his treatise On Stones,
c. 300 BC, followed by Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis
Historia, c. 77 AD.[2][3][4] While greatly facilitating the
identication of minerals in the eld, the Mohs scale is
not suitable for accurately gauging the hardness of industrial materials.[5]

are not considered scratches for the determination of a

Mohs scale number.[8]
The Mohs scale is a purely ordinal scale. For example,
corundum (9) is twice as hard as topaz (8), but diamond
(10) is four times as hard as corundum. The table below
shows the comparison with the absolute hardness measured by a sclerometer, with pictorial examples.[9][10]
On the Mohs scale, a streak plate (unglazed porcelain)
has a hardness of 7.0. Using these ordinary materials of
known hardness can be a simple way to approximate the
position of a mineral on the scale.[1]

3 Intermediate hardness
The table below incorporates additional substances that
may fall between levels:

Usage

Despite its simplicity and lack of precision, the Mohs

scale is highly relevant for eld geologists, who use the 4 Hardness (Vickers)
scale to roughly identify minerals using scratch kits. The
Mohs scale hardness of minerals can be commonly found Comparison between Hardness (Mohs) and Hardness
in reference sheets. Reference materials may be expected (Vickers):[14]
to have a uniform Mohs hardness.

5 See also

Minerals

6 References

The Mohs scale of mineral hardness is based on the ability of one natural sample of mineral to scratch another
mineral visibly. The samples of matter used by Mohs are
all dierent minerals. Minerals are pure substances found
in nature. Rocks are made up of one or more minerals.[6]
As the hardest known naturally occurring substance when
the scale was designed, diamonds are at the top of the
scale. The hardness of a material is measured against
the scale by nding the hardest material that the given
material can scratch, and/or the softest material that can
scratch the given material. For example, if some material
is scratched by apatite but not by uorite, its hardness on
the Mohs scale would fall between 4 and 5.[7] Scratching a material for the purposes of the Mohs scale means
creating non-elastic dislocations visible to the naked eye.
Frequently, materials that are lower on the Mohs scale
can create microscopic, non-elastic dislocations on materials that have a higher Mohs number. While these microscopic dislocations are permanent and sometimes detrimental to the harder materials structural integrity, they

[1] Mohs hardness in Encyclopdia Britannica Online

[2] Theophrastus on Stones. Farlang.com. Retrieved on
2011-12-10.
[3] Pliny the Elder. Naturalis Historia. Book 37. Chap. 15.
ADamas: six varieties of it. Two remedies.
[4] Pliny the Elder. Naturalis Historia. Book 37. Chap. 76.
The methods of testing precious stones.
[5] Hardness. Non-Destructive Testing Resource Center
[6] Learn science, Intermediate p. 42
[7] American Federation of Mineralogical Societies. Mohs
Scale of Mineral Hardness. amfed.org
[8] Geels, Kay. The True Microstructure of Materials, pp.
513 in Materialographic Preparation from Sorby to the
Present. Struers A/S, Copenhagen, Denmark

7 FURTHER READING

[9] Amethyst Galleries Mineral Gallery What is important

about hardness?. galleries.com
[10] Mineral Hardness and Hardness Scales. Inland Lapidary
[11] Mukherjee, Swapna (2012). Applied Mineralogy: Applications in Industry and Environment. Springer Science &
Business Media. pp. 373. ISBN 978-94-007-1162-4.
[12] Ice is a mineral in Exploring Ice in the Solar System.
messenger-education.org
[13] Berger, Lev I. (1996). Semiconductor Materials (First
ed.). Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press. p. 126. ISBN 9780849389122.
[14] http://www.mindat.org

Further reading
Mohs hardness of elements is taken from G.V. Samsonov (Ed.) in Handbook of the physicochemical
properties of the elements, IFI-Plenum, New York,
USA, 1968.
Cordua, William S. The Hardness of Minerals and
Rocks. Lapidary Digest, c. 1990.

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