Pyrite

My teacher gave me an assignment to write a post on a mineral.  I chose pyrite because it’s as good looking as gold and it’s about two times harder. As most of us know pyrite is also called fool’s gold because throughout history all sorts of people (mainly pirates and miners) thought they hit gold and got rich when really they just hit a rock that looked the same. Though if you ask me pyrite seems just as good as gold if not better. Because for those of you who don’t know gold is only a hardness of 2½ - 3 which is extremely soft when pyrite is a hardness of 6.5 which is pretty hard.

One cool thing about pyrite is that if you hit it with something hard a spark will shoot out. Though pyrite's true crystal form is in the shape of a cube, it sometimes will break down into many shapes and formations.  Like gold, pyrite's color is golden. Pyrite is metallic and brassy.  Unlike gold it is hard and it snaps easily. I will return with info. on some other rock soon i'm guessing.