But, dad, what I want to know is how you know which mineral is which.
You look carefully at the specimen, at its colour, its crystal shape or crystal habit, then there are other things you can study too. Like streak, luster, cleavage, fracture, or density, weight to you and me, and even where it came from can help tell you what mineral a specimen might be.
So if I had some Sapphire what would it look like?
That’s a valuable one used in jewelry, it's a often a clear blue colour.
And what if I had some Labradorite and Bornite, how could I tell them apart?
You’ve got both of those. They are sort of similar as they are the iridescent multi-coloured ones, but one has a vitreous to pearly luster the other is metallic.
Have I got any Fluorspar, what does that look like?
Yes you’ve got some of that, it has the nice clear to yellow cubic crystals, but it can be a few different colours too, remember you got some blue examples from Derbyshire.
What about Lepidocrocite and Molybdenite, are they easy to tell apart?
Hmmm, you could look at the colour, but there’s another test you could try which would work well with these two.
Oh yes I know.
OK Dad, will they be able to find the geocache now?
Yes I should think so, they are all very clever you know, I'm sure they will not find it too hard, it's only six numbers they are looking for.
