English
Noun
Mineral (plural minerals)
- A naturally occurring chemical compound containing one or more elements. Rocks are formed from one or more minerals. The distinction between rocks and minerals is often vague, and special cases apply:
- Quartz is a mineral composed of silicon and oxygen. A piece of quartz is both a rock and a mineral.
- Calcium carbonate forms a variety of minerals with widely different properties. One of these is common limestone, which is both rock and mineral.
- Granite is a rock made primarily of the minerals feldspar and quartz. Granite is not a mineral.
- Native elements like gold and silver are included in mineralogical references, but are technically not minerals because they are not compounds. The same elements found in combination with another element, however, are minerals. The mineral Calaverite is gold silver telluride.
- In general, any rock that is composed of two or more distinct minerals is not itself a mineral.
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