MWJL+3.2

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Vocabulary

 * solution**:A mixture when one substance is dissolved in one another.
 * vein**: A very narrow slab of a mineral that is sharply different from the surrounding mineral.

Process That Forms Minerals

 * Minerals can form from two different ways
 * Through crystallization of melted materials
 * crystallization in materials dissolved in water.

Minerals From Magma

 * Minerals can form as hot magma cools inside the crust, or as lava hardens on the surface of the earth.
 * When these kind of liquids cool to a more solid state, they form crystals.
 * The size of the crystal depends on several important factors.
 * The rate at which the magma cools
 * the amount of gas the magma contains
 * The chemical composition of the magma.
 * Magma that cools closer to the surface cools much faster than magma that hardens very deep below the ground.
 * When there is more rapid cooling, there is no time for magma to form bigger crystals
 * Instead, smaller crystals form.

Minerals From Hot Water Solutions

 * Sometimes the elements that forms a mineral dissolves in the very hot water.
 * The magma underneath us heated the water to a very very high temperature.
 * When the hot water solution cools, it becomes a mineral.

Minerals Formed by Evaporation

 * Minerals also forms another way.
 * Minerals can also form when solutions evaporate.
 * If you take a beaker and fill it with salt and water, the salt will dissolve a solution.
 * When the water dries, it will leave salt crystals on the bottom.
 * Minerals formed by Evaporation basically forms the same way.

Where Minerals are Found

 * Earth's crust is made up mostly of lots of common rock-forming minerals combined with other rocks.
 * Less common and more scarce and rare minerals are not distributed evenly in the earth's crust.

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