These two examples show the shape of individual quartz crystals.
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Find out how to identify minerals (...and learn what shape, luster, color, streak, hardness, cleavage and fracture are all about!)
Meet some other silicate minerals!
Quartz
This mineral is called quartz!
Sometimes it looks white like milk but usually it looks clear like glass, sometimes with a little pink or gray tinge of color.
You can find crystals of quartz in many different types of rocks. Igneous rocks that form deep in the ground can have big quartz crystals in them. Metamorphic rocks that are made when rocks are squished and heated often have quartz in them too. Often sand is made of little bits of quartz. When all the sand grains get stuck together they make a sedimentary rock called sandstone!
Last modified November 6, 2003 by Lisa Gardiner.
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