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Tenacity and hardness of minerals

Short answer

Tenacity is a mineral's resistance to breaking, bending, or cutting; types include brittle, malleable, sectile, flexible, and elastic. Hardness is resistance to scratching, measured on Mohs scale from 1 (talc) to 10 (diamond).

Define tenacity and hardness of minerals.

Tenacity is the resistance of a mineral to breaking, bending, cutting or crushing, that is, how it behaves when force is applied. Types:

  • Brittle: breaks or powders (quartz, calcite).
  • Malleable: can be hammered into sheets (gold, copper).
  • Sectile: can be cut with a knife into shavings (gypsum, talc).
  • Flexible: bends and stays bent (talc, chlorite).
  • Elastic: bends and returns to shape (mica).

Hardness is the resistance of a mineral to scratching or abrasion. It is measured relatively on the Mohs scale of ten minerals: talc (1), gypsum (2), calcite (3), fluorite (4), apatite (5), orthoclase (6), quartz (7), topaz (8), corundum (9) and diamond (10).

✓ Answer checked by Claude Opus 5.5 (high effort)

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