What is the hardest mineral in the world?

Brief description of minerals. NATURAL ELEMENTS This class includes chemical elements that are found in a free state in nature. They make up only about 0,1% of the mass of the earth’s crust. Native elements are both metals and metalloids. Native metals have good electrical and thermal conductivity, high density (heavy), and high reflectivity, which results in a constant metallic luster. The color and features of native metals are also constant and characteristic of each of them. All of them do not scratch glass, are opaque, have no cleavage, and are malleable. Native metalloids have a non-metallic luster and their density is low (light). Gold – Ai. Physical properties. Metallic shine. Hardness is average. The color is golden yellow. The streak is golden yellow, metallic shiny. Heavy. Inclusions in quartz, dendrites, hair-like forms, also leaves, scales, grains and large nuggets in placers. For example, in the last century, a nugget weighing 36 kg 22 g (“Big Triangle”) was found in the Miass region in the Urals. Crystals are exceptionally rare and usually distorted. Cubic system. Malleable gold can be flattened to a thickness of 0,00008 mm (500 times thinner than a human hair). Stringy. From gold the size of a pea you can draw a wire 15 km long with a diameter of 0,000002 mm. Physical properties. The luster is metallic, greasy or matte. Soft. Writes on paper, gets his hands dirty. Greasy to the touch. Color iron black, steel grey. The line is black. The cleavage is very perfect. Solid scaly, dense or earthy masses, inclusions and crystals in the form of hexagonal plates. The system is hexagonal. Crystals are rare. The crystalline structure of graphite makes it different from diamond, another form of carbon in which the atoms are tightly bonded to each other in all directions. The crystalline structure of graphite also determines its low hardness, ease of grinding, a greasy feel, very perfect cleavage, opacity, metallic luster, and high electrical conductivity. Features. Graphite is characterized by low hardness (graphite is soft), graphite is easy to write on paper, and has a more or less constant steel-gray, iron-black color. Graphite can be confused with molybdenite. Unlike molybdenite, graphite is ground into black dust with your fingers (molybdenum glitter is ground into a light gray powder). Variety. Shungite—amorphous variety of graphite. Physical properties. Diamond has the same chemical composition as graphite, but in appearance it differs sharply from it. This difference is explained by the different arrangement of carbon atoms in the crystal lattice: in diamond they are located in a tetrahedral structure and have a strong bond in all directions. Diamond is a stone with an unusual shine, play of colors, and inner fire. The shine of a diamond is strong – diamond-like. Diamond is very hard – “the king of all minerals.” In terms of hardness, it is not inferior to any of the known minerals. Diamond is the “champion of hardness”: it is 1000 times harder than quartz, 150 times harder than corundum. Perhaps that is why the ancient Greeks considered diamond a talisman of power. Diamond is resistant to acids and heat. This is the only mineral that leaves a scratch on corundum. By this characteristic it differs from similar minerals—rock crystal, topaz, etc. Diamond is very hard, but at the same time brittle. It splits easily along cleavage planes. The cleavage is perfect along the faces of the octahedron. This property of diamond is used by jewelers when processing it. A new mineral with great hardness has been found, the “brother” of diamond – yakutite. No precious stone has as many shades as a diamond: ranging from colorless to almost black through white, blue, green, yellowish, pink, reddish, brownish, smoky gray tones; often transparent. Diamond is found mostly in the form of individual crystals – octahedra with curved edges, the external shape of which is close to a ball. The crystal sizes are usually small. Crystallizes in cubic system. Features. Characteristic features of diamond are strong diamond luster and high hardness – it leaves a scratch on corundum. Chemical properties. Acids and alkalis have no effect. Varieties. 1. Diamond – artificially cut diamond. A diamond scatters sunlight like raindrops forming a rainbow. Diamond is the most brilliant gemstone. 2. Board—irregular fine-grained intergrowths. 3. Ballas – spherical diamond, radial-radiant structure. 4. Carbonado – black, gray, dense or fine-grained. Physical properties. Sulfur, unlike other native elements, has a molecular lattice, which determines its low hardness (soft or medium hard sulfur), lack of cleavage, fragility, uneven fracture and the resulting oily sheen; Only on the surface of the crystals is a glassy sheen observed. Sulfur has poor electrical conductivity, weak thermal conductivity, low melting point (112,8°C) and ignition point (248°C). Native sulfur is ignited by a match and burns with a blue flame; this produces sulfur dioxide, which has a pungent, suffocating odor. The color of native sulfur is light yellow, straw yellow, honey yellow, greenish; varieties containing organic substances acquire a brown, gray, or black color. Volcanic sulfur is bright yellow, orange, greenish. The streak is white, usually with a yellowish tint. Sulfur is found in the form of continuous dense, sintered, earthy, powdery masses; There are also overgrown crystals, drusen, nodules, plaques, crusts, inclusions and pseudomorphs of organic residues. Rhombic syngony. Features. Native sulfur is characterized by: a non-metallic luster and the fact that the sulfur ignites with a match and burns, releasing sulfur dioxide, which has a sharp suffocating odor. The most characteristic color of native sulfur is light yellow. Variety. Volkanite (selenium sulfur). Orange-red, red-brown color. Researchers say the generally accepted scale for measuring the hardness of materials is approximate. Related video Since ancient times, people have tested the hardness of substances by looking at whether they can scratch various types of surfaces. The oldest description of this method was set out in the treatise “On Stones” by Theophrastus around 300 BC. German mineralogist Friedrich Mohs took this idea as a basis and streamlined it, writes IFLScience. The Mohs scale is a fairly simple one, rating rocks and metals from 1 to 10. The hardness of a substance is determined by its ability to scratch others. So, the hardest substance was called the one that could scratch almost everything, while remaining intact. It’s no surprise that diamonds are at level 10 on the Mohs scale. It later turned out that not all diamonds are equally hard, so now only type IIa diamonds are assigned a value of 10 on the Mohs scale. In Focus. Technology has its ownTelegram channel. Subscribe so you don’t miss the freshest and most exciting news from the world of science! There are also nine other substances on the Mohs scale, in order: talc, gypsum, calcite, fluorite, apatite, orthoclase, feldspar, quartz, topaz and corundum. Over the years, the scale has been replenished with new substances, but using decimal fractions. But the problem with the scale is that by placing all the original elements at the same distance from each other, Mohs did not reflect their real differences. For example, gypsum, calcite and fluorite are in the correct order, the gap between calcite and fluorite is slightly smaller than between gypsum and calcite. But according to the Mohs scale, the gaps between them are equal. There is also a large gap between the real hardness of diamond and corundum, where the former is almost 4 times harder in terms of absolute hardness. Mohs was not to blame for such shortcomings of the scale, he simply did not have the technology to more accurately measure hardness, and then people did not yet know about the existence of substances that could compare in hardness with diamonds or even surpass them. Today, science knows about the existence of ultra-hard materials that are superior to diamonds. Such materials include fullerites with a hardness index from 150 to 300 GPa (for diamonds from 60 to 150 GPa), which consist of fullerenes. The latter are found in nature wherever there is carbon and high energies. They can be found near carbon stars, in places where lightning strikes, and volcano craters. Despite this, the Mohs scale is still used in science. The thing is that it is very convenient to use in field conditions, where more modern and accurate equipment is simply not available. If researchers find a mineral that is unknown to science, it is unlikely that they will have a diamond anvil on hand to measure absolute pressure resistance. But the find will be quite easy to verify on the Mohs scale. An approximate Mohs scale measurement will help identify the finding. It will also show whether the find contains precious minerals. This simpler method has proven time and time again to be more convenient than asking how much force must be applied in a diamond anvil to deform a substance—the measure used in the Vickers scale. Let us remind you that scientists have discovered the secret ingredient for creating pink diamonds on Earth. Pink diamonds are a very rare gemstone, but scientists now know how they came to be near the surface.

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