1. How is luster used for mineral identification?
A.It’s the color of the mineral.
B.It’s how hard the mineral is.
C.It’s how light reflects off the mineral. <— my answer
D.It’s how a mineral breaks.
The correct answer is C. Luster refers to how light reflects off a mineral's surface. It can be described as either metallic or non-metallic. To determine the luster of a mineral, you can examine its appearance and observe how it reflects light.
To identify the luster of a mineral, you can follow these steps:
1. Observe the mineral's surface: Look at the mineral under good lighting conditions and examine how it interacts with light.
2. Determine if it reflects light like a metal: If the mineral has a shiny, reflective surface similar to a metal, it has metallic luster. This means that it reflects light in a way that is similar to the reflective surfaces of metals like gold, silver, or copper.
3. Check for non-metallic luster: If the mineral does not have a metallic appearance, it is classified as having non-metallic luster. Non-metallic lusters can have various appearances, such as glassy, pearly, vitreous (having a glass-like shine), silky, waxy, or earthy.
4. Use reference materials: If you are unsure about the specific luster classification, you can consult reference materials, such as mineral identification guides or online databases, that provide descriptions and images of minerals with different lusters.
Remember, luster is just one aspect of mineral identification. It is important to consider other characteristics, such as color, streak, hardness, cleavage, and crystal shape, to accurately identify a mineral.