diane de saint ouen

handmade gemstone jewelry

 Made in France

about us: home page service/quality charter necklaces bracelets earrings sets gemstones: turquoise tiger eye aventurine snowflake obsidian rose quartz transparent quartz amethyst sodalite gold stone chalcedony lapis lazuli malachite hematite fresh water pearls carnelian leopardskin jasper how to order order form contact us - questions? Mohs' hardness scale

Back in high school geology class, I was introduced to the world of minerals via Mr Mohs. Our class work consisted of identifying minerals using a scale devised by Friedrich Mohs in 1812. The scale itself  is a list of 10 minerals ranked in order of 1-10 from the softest to the hardest, as follows:

1. Talc
2. Gypsum
3. Calcite
4. Fluorite
5. Apatite
6. Feldspar
7. Quartz
8. Topaz
9. Corundum
10.  Diamond

The idea is to test your unknown minerals against one of the 10 identified minerals by scratching their surfaces together. If your mineral can leave a mark on fluorite for example but not on feldspar, then chances are that its relative hardness is around that of apatite or 5. Childs play really, but other criteria enter into the identification process such as luster , cleavage, crystalline form , color and rock type. I’ve included this tidbit of trivia simply because my teacher Mr Wiescinski told us we could possibly need to know this later in life,( it’s always good to prove a nice guy right) and, it was fun to scratch the heck out of everything else using the diamond! Not a very good idea if you’d like the stones in your jewellery to aesthetically stand the test of time. So, for what it’s worth, now you know exactly what enemy stones your jewellery could attack, thanks to Fred Mohs.