Have you ever been fooled by the question, 'Which weighs more, a pound of feathers or a pound of bricks?' Well obviously, they have the same weight. Well, how about this question, 'Which weighs more, a liter of water or a liter of bricks?' The answer to this question is not so obvious. It requires an understanding of density, the amount of mass in a certain volume of material.
As brick has more mass per unit volume, it has a greater density. As the brick is more dense, it will sink in water. Mineralogists have often used a similar property called specific gravity to describe the density of a mineral. Specific gravity is simply a ratio of the mineral's mass to the mass of an equal volume of water. Different minerals have different densities and thus different specific gravities. This lesson will describe how density and specific gravity are used to differentiate between minerals.
Mineral Density
Let's pretend you find an unknown specimen in your backyard. It's a heavy specimen, and you want to know what it is. As a novice mineralogist, you head to the laboratory to measure its density. Well, what to do first?
You need to determine the mass of the sample, so you weigh it on a scale and find its mass to be 150 grams. Now that you've identified the mass, you need to determine how much water the sample displaces. Fortunately, your sample is small enough to put in a beaker of water that's calibrated on the side. Before you place the sample in the water, you note the level at 100 milliliters, or 100 cubic centimeters (cc). After you place the sample in the water, you notice the level rises to 120 cc; therefore, 20 cc of water is displaced. This displaced volume of water is equal to the volume of the sample; therefore, your sample has a volume of 20 cc.