Silicate minerals are rock-forming minerals made up of silicate groups. They are the largest and most important class of minerals and make up approximately 90 percent of Earth's crust.
Lithium aluminium silicate mineral spodumene
Diatomaceous earth, a biogenic form of silica as viewed under a microscope. The imaged region measures approximately 1.13 by 0.69 mm.
Nesosilicate specimens at the Museum of Geology in South Dakota
Kyanite crystals (unknown scale)
Quartz is a hard mineral composed of silica. Its atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon–oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen atom being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an over
Silicate mineral
…classification system (75.1). However, the Nickel–Strunz classification categorizes them as oxide minerals (4.DA). Silica is found in nature as the mineral quartz and its polymorphs. On Earth, a wide variety of silicate minerals occur in an even wider range of combinations as a result of the processes that have…
Quartz crystal cluster from Brazil
Sceptered quartz (as aggregates: "Elestial quartz")