Basalt Granite Hardness

Appearance of granite is veined or pebbled and that of basalt is dull and soft.

Basalt granite hardness. Basalt is a common extrusive igneous rock formed by the rapid cooling of basaltic lava exposed at or very near the surface of earth. Properties of rock is another aspect for granite vs basalt. Basalt is an aphanitic fine grained igneous rock that is relatively low in silica and alkali metals it has less than 10 feldspathoid by volume with at least 65 of the rock consisting of feldspar in the form of plagioclase this places basalt in the basalt andesite field of the qapf diagram basalt is further distinguished from andesite by its silica content of less than 52. On moh s hardness scale the hardness of these.

It most commonly forms as an extrusive rock such as a lava flow but can also form in small intrusive bodies such as an igneous dike or a thin sill it has a composition similar to gabbro the difference between basalt and gabbro is that basalt is a fine grained rock while. The hardness of granite is 6 7 and that of basalt is 6. The streak of basalt is white to grey. The streak of a rock is the color of powder produced when it is dragged across an unweathered surface.

Basalt is higher in rock hardness than that of coarser grained igneous rocks like granite compressive strength mpa 100 300 tensile strength mpa 10 30 shear strength mpa 20 60 bulk density. Basalt is usually much finer grained than granite so it would be virtually impossible to determine the hardness of the individual mineral crystals.