In testing this piece of quartz, I found that it would scratch glass. What property was I testing?

1. Hardness

   Yes! Hardness is a substance's resistance to being scratched. With a hardness of 7, quartz is hard enough to scratch glass.

2. Cleavage

   No. Cleavage is the tendency of a mineral to break along planes of weakness to produce pieces with flat, smooth sides. Cleavage involves breaking, not scratching.

3. Fracture

   No. Fracture is a property of minerals that do NOT break along planes of weakness to produce flat, smooth sides. This involves breaking, not scratching.

4. Streak

   No. Streak is a test to see the color of a mineral when it is ground into a powder by scratching it on a porcelain streak plate. For streak, we are powdering the mineral, not scratching another substance.

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