• One common use for garnet is as an abrasive.
• The mineral is crushed into tiny particles, glued up on a paper backing and turned into garnet paper, It is used for sanding.
• no streak
• vitreous luster
• transparent to opaque
• heavy, hard
• dark red colour turns to dull pink when weathered
• Another common use is for jewellery, but only if the garnet crystal is tansparent.

SPECIMEN: Massive Garnet in epidote (green)

• This large, sandy, reddish-purple 12-sided garnet crystal weathered out of the mica schist it was in.
• The rain & the freeze/thaw cycle makes the schist break down because it is not hard.
• The garnet is very hard and so just rolls out of the schist into a pile of rock flakes & sand.
• The surface of the garnet gets dull because the water & chemicals of the sand corrodes its surface. This is called weathering.
• The crystal looks like a 12-sided die.

• COGWHEEL GARNETS are 2 garnets that have grown into each other. The faces that touch have angular "cogwheels".