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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Gemstones and Minerals
Help Identify Rocks Full of gold stuff
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<blockquote data-quote="user 4386" data-source="post: 343011" data-attributes="member: 4386"><p>An alternative to get the same colour powders is to scratch the mineral on white broken porcelain (not glossy) - problem is that you need a larger bit of mineral and some are harder than porcelain (very hard minerals can be scratched with quartz, which is harder than steel, or even topaz or a diamond point as in a glass-cutter). Same colour powder as with a knife - we call it the "streak" colour, from streaking it on porcelain. Many simple mineralogy books list things like hardness, streak, colour, lustre (lustre can be a sheen on the surface like a pearl, glassy, earthy etc). You'll soon get the hang of it - but carry a 10x and if possible also 20x hand lense, glass not plastic and in the case of the 10x at least 1.5 cm in diameter (too small does not give you a wide enough view - you can then zero in on a particular mineral with the 20x which are usually a bit smaller diameter for cost reasons). Things look so different under a hand lense - like looking down on top of a building from a plane versus looking at the rivets in the sheet metal roof from a few cm away <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="user 4386, post: 343011, member: 4386"] An alternative to get the same colour powders is to scratch the mineral on white broken porcelain (not glossy) - problem is that you need a larger bit of mineral and some are harder than porcelain (very hard minerals can be scratched with quartz, which is harder than steel, or even topaz or a diamond point as in a glass-cutter). Same colour powder as with a knife - we call it the "streak" colour, from streaking it on porcelain. Many simple mineralogy books list things like hardness, streak, colour, lustre (lustre can be a sheen on the surface like a pearl, glassy, earthy etc). You'll soon get the hang of it - but carry a 10x and if possible also 20x hand lense, glass not plastic and in the case of the 10x at least 1.5 cm in diameter (too small does not give you a wide enough view - you can then zero in on a particular mineral with the 20x which are usually a bit smaller diameter for cost reasons). Things look so different under a hand lense - like looking down on top of a building from a plane versus looking at the rivets in the sheet metal roof from a few cm away :-) [/QUOTE]
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Gemstones, Minerals & Fossils
Gemstones and Minerals
Help Identify Rocks Full of gold stuff
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