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All righty, time for a little bit on minerals. This section I'm pretty
shaky on, so all I can do is try. First off, there's a difference between
MINERALS
and ELEMENTS. Elements are those things
on the Periodic Table, you know, with the atomic numbers and all? Well,
minerals are different. They're really a bunch of elements put together
to make some kind of structure, like rocks.
There are two main properties that are associated with minerals,
and those are composition and texture. Composition refers to what the thing's
made out of, especially when you're talking chemistry. It's like what elements
go into making it what it is. Now, texture, on the other hand, is what
it looks like. Color, size,
shape
of grains, relative abundance, and yes, even taste, all make up
the physical properties of minerals.
One of the more abundant minerals on Earth is quatz. Quartz comes
in a bunch of different shapes and colors, but the one I'm talking about
is the black kind. It has a smoky color, looks kinda like broken glass,
and is really smooth. Most quartz is made up of Silicon and Oxygen, which
are two ELEMENTS.
Did you ever make crystals when you were little? I didn't, of
course, because my parents never let me. But still, if you did, do you
remember how you got it to work? If at all? Well, the trick is to get the
temperature just right. The same goes for the REAL crystals. If
there is high evaporation or rapid cooling, there will be no crystals or
very small crystals. However, if there is slow crystallization, you'll
get big crystals. Too bad we didn't know that when we were little...
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