What are crystals made of?
How do you form a crystal? How does it grow and develop? What determines the family and properties?
Each mineral is classified according to its chemical composition, i.e. the amount of natural chemical elements organized in a given system, which determines its crystallization, color, opacity and hardness.
In the appropriate environment, chemical elements such as O(oxygen), Fe(iron), Cu(copper), Si(silicon) and all the others, combine through pressure, temperature changes and oxidation to create crystalline, mineral and rock formations.
For example, the chemical formula of Hyaline Quartz or rock crystal is SiO2, meaning: for every Silicon atom two oxygen atoms are attached to it, while a pyrite crystal would be classified as FeS2, as in: two sulfur atoms for every iron atom.
Surely everyone will remember the chemical formula of water, H2O (2 hydrogen atoms for every oxygen atom), a fundamental element for the existence of life as we know it, so what does the presence of oxygen and hydrogen in minerals mean?
Simply that they too, in their own way, have a birth and growth and cyclically a ‘death’, that is, due to time and lithogenetic modifications, the loss of their original composition, their purity and their form.
A ‘dead’ crystal is reabsorbed by the earth and surrounding minerals and reprocessed and re-cycled as raw material to feed plants, animals and new rocks and crystals.
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.”
― Nikola Tesla
So, what are the requirements for a mineral to form?
Matter, vibration and pressure.
All that quartz is composed of are silicon and oxygen, which have come into contact in a given environment, at a given time, after which the pressure has made them develop into a specific form (crystalline structure) as a result of its DNA (chemical formula) adapting where it encountered obstacles or other substances.
