what does hardness mean in rocks
A measure of the ease with which a smooth surface of a mineral can be scratched, or of its resistance to abrasion. In 1822 the Austrian mineralogist Friedrich Mohs devised a scale based on one mineral's ability to scratch another.He placed 10 minerals in order from softest to hardest, giving a relative hardness value of 1 to the softest mineral, and 10 to the hardest.ather, it is a method of gauging the relative hardness of a mineral. If a mineral cannot be scratched by a knife blade but can be scratched by quartz then its hardness is between 5 and 7 (stated as 5-7) on Mohs scale.