Minerals by Calculated Radioactivity.
Physical Properties |
Optical Properties |
| Hardness, Streak, and Luster | Refractive index |
| Density
Cleavage and Fracture |
Color |
The "Collectors Corner" of the Mineralogical Society of America features an excellent, on-line, mineral identification key by Alan Plante, Donald Peck, & David Von Bargen. The identification key is based on simple mineralogical tests such as luster, hardness, color and physical description for the most common minerals an individual is likely to encounter.
Example: "luster=metallic" or "luster=sub met*" "streak=gray" "lead=4*" finds all metallic minerals with a gray streak containing 40.0% to 49.9% of lead.
Example: "density-2.6*" "hardness-3*" "luster-vitreous" "color-white" or "color-colorless" for all white, vitreous minerals that have a hardness of 3 to 3.5 and a density of 2.6 to 2.69
Example: "sodium-3" "biaxial" "cleavage-00*" finds all biaxial minerals with a basal cleavage with 3 to 3.99% sodium.
Example: "luster-adamantine" "color-yellow" "cleavage-none" finds all yellow minerals with no cleavage and an adamantine luster.
Example: "iron-3" barium cerium finds all minerals with 3 to 3.99% iron containing cerium and barium.
Example: "intensity-o-3.5*" boron finds all minerals containing boron with the most intense x-ray d-spacing of 3.5 to 3.599 angstroms.
Example: biaxial-a1.7* bire-0.015* pleochroism "pale blue" finds all biaxial minerals with the lowest index of refraction from 1.7 to 1.799, a birefringence of 0.0150 to 0.0159 and a pale blue pleochroism.
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