Cleavage
What Would You Like to Know?
-What is Cleavage?
Cleavage is the ability of a mineral to break along preferred planes.
Some minerals show different colors along different crystallographic axes. This is known as pleochroism.
-How is cleavage described?
Minerals that have “perfect” cleavage almost always break in a preferred direction. Minerals that have “good” cleavage sometimes will break in a particular direction, and other times they may not.
Mineralogical Society of America