Silicate - Silicate Rock and Minerals

Silicate Rock and Minerals

In geology and astronomy, the term silicate is used to denote types of rock that consist predominantly of silicate minerals. On Earth, a wide variety of silicate minerals occur in an even wider range of combinations as a result of the processes that form and re-work the crust. These processes include partial melting, crystallization, fractionation, metamorphism, weathering and diagenesis. Living things also contribute to the silicate cycle near the Earth's surface. A type of plankton known as diatoms construct their exoskeletons, known as tests, from silica. The tests of dead diatoms are a major constituent of deep ocean sediment.

Silica, or silicon dioxide, SiO₂, is sometimes considered a silicate, although it is the special case with no negative charge and no need for counter-ions. Silica is found in nature as the mineral quartz, and its polymorphs.