Have you ever wondered what the hardness of tanzanite is? But before that, let’s understand what a Tanzanite is. It’s a pretty blue-violet gem that belongs to the mineral group. Think about strolling ...

Mineral Monday is a weekly video series exploring the many amazing minerals, fossils, and historic objects on display at the W.M. Keck Earth Science and Mineral Engineering Museum as told by museum ...

Geologists do it according to the Mohs Scale of Hardness. There. That’s your “hardness” joke for the post. Now down to business, with the hardest (and softest) scale there is. In 1812, people had just ...

Happy Mineral Monday! This week, we look at the mineral Talc. This soft mineral sits at a 1 on the Mohs Hardness Scale, and when ground up becomes a common household powder. Any guesses what that ...

Intaglio is an ancient carving technique for adding details to a workpiece, by manually removing material from a surface with only basic hand tools. If enough material depth is removed, the resulting ...