4: Crystals and Crystallization
- Page ID
- 17513
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KEY CONCEPTS
- With just a few exceptions, all minerals are crystalline.
- Crystalline substances have an orderly and repetitive atomic arrangement.
- Crystals grow from small seeds and sometimes become very large.
- Igneous minerals precipitate from a magma; most of them are silicates.
- Aqueous minerals precipitate from water; they include compounds of high solubility.
- Hydrothermal minerals precipitate from warm flowing waters.
- Metamorphic minerals form by solid-state reactions during metamorphism.
- Some minerals form during weathering or diagenesis.
- Minerals may not form or be stable under all conditions.
- Minerals may have defects involving misplaced or missing atoms.
- Minerals may be heterogeneous.
- Mineral crystals may be twinned, containing domains with slightly different atomic orientations.