ESAY+4.2

=How Minerals Form=

Vocabulary

 * Solution**: A mixture in which one substance is dissolved in another
 * Vein:** A narrow slab of mineral that is sharply different from the surrounding rock.

Outline

 * At 'Crater of Diamonds' State Park in Arkansas diamonds can be found.
 * Millions of years ago great pressure and heat changed carbon atoms into the hardest known substance called diamond.
 * Which are deep formed in the mantle erupted carrying diamonds to the surface.

**Processes that form minerals**:

 * Minerals can form in two different ways, through crystallization of melted materials and through crystallization of materials dissolved in water.
 * Crystallization is the process by which atoms are arranged to form a material with a crystal structure.

**Minerals from Magma:**

 * Minerals from as hot magma cools inside the crust or as lava hardens on the surface.
 * When these liquids cool to a solid state, they form crystals.

**Minerals from hot water solutions:**

 * A solution is a mixture in which one substance dissolves another.
 * As hot water solutions cools the elements and compounds leave the solution and crystallize as minerals.

**Minerals formed by evaporation:**

 * Just like salt crystals can be seen after letting salt water evaporate, thick deposits of the mineral halite is formed over millions of years when ancient seas slowly evaporated.
 * In the United States such halite deposits occur in the Mid west, the South west and along the Gulf coast.

Where minerals are found:

 * Earth's crust is mostly made up of common rock - forming minerals combined in various types of rock.
 * Less common and rare minerals ,however ,are not distributed evenly throughout the crust.
 * Instead ,there are several process that concentrate minerals, or bring them together in deposit.