the.com/silicate
Oxygen and silicon holding hands in a tetrahedron, building most of the planet you're standing on.
means A mineral compound built from silicon and oxygen atoms (usually bonded as SiO4 tetrahedra), forming the backbone of most of Earth's rocks, sand, and soil.
from From Latin 'silex' (flint, hard stone), which gave rise to 'silicium/silicon' — coined in the early 19th century by chemists naming the newly isolated element. 'Silicate' simply tacks on the chemical suffix '-ate', marking it as a salt or compound of that element, the same pattern as 'sulfate' or 'nitrate'. The flinty Roman root is fitting: silicates are, quite literally, the stuff of stone.
- crust share
- over 90 percent of earth's crust is silicates
- basic shape
- always a silicon atom caged by four oxygens
- glass secret
- melt it, cool it fast, you get glass
- mineral family
- quartz, mica, feldspar all silicate relatives