Lapis Lazuli

Transcript:

Sarah: So there aren't that many examples that we have in Minecraft, but one of the big ones is lapis lazuli, so do you want to talk about this one? 

Kim: Sure. So, I mean, this is such a striking sample. Typically in the collections that we have, it's this bright blue color, but it also, it's a rock, so it's made up of several different minerals. So we usually see a pyrite, which is that sort of brassy gold color, so I think you can see it a little bit in the sample there. I don't know if you can point it out.

Sarah: There's some. 

Kim: Yeah, yeah. And so, and then calcite, so some of the white materialis calcite, and, yeah, it's got about hardness, Moh's hardness of about five, or five and a half, so it's very easy to, with a tool, carve as well, so that's a beautiful example of, in the ROM's collections, of a carving of lapis. 

Sarah: So you mentioned Moh's hardness. Is that, like, a guy named Moe who goes around and is like, "it's that hard!" 

Kim: So we we talk about, you know, talc is very very soft, and that's one on Moh's hardness, and then diamonds are very, very hard, and that's 10, and sort of this scale of hardnesses, so if I talk about a number, I can talk to other people that understand that that's sort of mid-hardness, you know, that's five, is kind of halfway between talc and diamond. I guess it's probably the easiest way to describe it, without getting into a big lecture about it. Is it like Moe, like the name, or is it spelled differently? It's Moh yeah, that's the name, and it's named after somebody who came up with the whole hardness scale. 

Sarah: We'll do a Minecraft detour. So I have all of the rocks that we've seen so far laid out. I'm gonna pick up some sandstone, and I've got some lapis. Okay, so this right here, this thing right here, is something that we have in Minecraft: Education Edition. It's called the material reducer, and if I go into the material reducer, and I put pretty much any of the rocks we've seen so far, so any of our igneous or sedimentary rocks in there, it's going to break down into silicon and oxygen, those two elements, and then-- 

Kim: Super cool.

Sarah: If I take that out and I put the lapis in instead, it's different. 

Kim: Very cool. So you can see the sodium, you can see the sulfur, yeah, so that's actually very accurate of the different minerals that are made up of lapis. So that's really interesting, and I'm really glad that you're able to do that. So you can understand a little bit more about what's in your rocks. 

Sarah: Silicon and oxygen. Silicon and oxygen! And if I put grass block in there, carbon oxygen nitrogen phosphorus. 

Kim: Very cool