Hardness Test
By:
Purpose
The purpose of this project was to figure out which rock was “harder” or
was more resistant against scratches from the other rocks and place the
rocks in line from Softest to Hardest.
Hypothesis
Our Hypothesis was, that the Corundum rock was going to be the hardest
out of all the other rocks just because of its appearance and weight. We
had thought that the Talc rock would have been to softest because there
had been a lot of dust already in the containment chamber it was placed in,
showing it might have been more prone to scratching.
Procedure
To try and prove our hypothesis right, we went through these steps that
would allows us to see the hardness of each and every rock.
1. We had taken two rocks in the box given to us.
2. We took them and started to scratch the rocks on the opposite rocks surface to be
able to see which would have let more rock particles (dust) fall from its surface due
to the scratching.
3. We noted what we saw and then tested the same rocks again to be thorough and
sure of our choice.
4. We would put them in order from there, from softest to hardest.
5. This step was repeated on every rock. Every single rock had been tested against
each other to be absolutely sure that the placement that the rocks were in were
right. Being placed in order everytime we noted which had been Softer than the
other.
Materials Used
❖ Set of 9 Rocks (Talc, Feldspar, Gypsum, Quartz, Calcite, Fluorite, Corundum,
Apatite)
❖ Paper & Pencil (to note the results)
❖ ‘ROCKS!’ Handout to help for references
Results
After testing our hypothesis, we were able to come up with the results for
this laboratory. We found out that Talc was the softest rock, in other words,
it was more prone to scratching, and the hardest rock was the Corundum...