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Phosphate Minerals

1 of 72 entries in Materials. Click any to see everything it connects to.

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Minerals built around the phosphate ion, following the Nickel-Strunz phosphate class. Includes apatite, the most common phosphate mineral and the structural mineral of vertebrate bone and tooth enamel. Belongs here: any mineral whose defining anion group is phosphate. Does not belong here: a silicate, oxide or carbonate mineral that may co-occur with apatite as an accessory mineral in the same rock but carries a different defining anion. This class holds one live entity today; further phosphate minerals have a real home waiting here as later mint waves add them.

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