>Is there anything in an "Arkansas stone" (Novaculite) that's harder
>than quartz crystals?
>
AFAIK novaculite *is* a form of quartz, it's a sedimentary rock made of very fine quartz crystals...
Re: Mohs scale of hardness can kick the bucket.
May 16, 2008
1 Replies
Alvin: If you look around on Google you will find reference to a book called =93Industrial Minerals & Rocks: Commodities, Markets, and Uses=94, 7th edition. If you look at the preview in Google Books you will find that on page
153 of the chapter on abrasives it notes that:=93Natural abrasive stones are made from a wide variety of materials including sandstone, novaculite=85The superior cutting quality of some of these stones is due to the well-disseminated, fine-grained inclusions of garnet or other minerals of superior hardness.=92
It doesn=92t specifically mention garnet earlier in a discussion of novaculite where it notes that material is primarily quartz.
Pittsburgh Pete
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