Silicate Minerals

Minerals built on a silicon-oxygen tetrahedron framework, the largest and most abundant mineral class in the Earth crust, following the Nickel-Strunz and Dana silicate classifications and their tectosilicate, phyllosilicate and nesosilicate subclasses. Includes framework silicates (quartz, feldspar, the most abundant mineral group in the crust), sheet silicates or phyllosilicates (mica, talc) and isolated-tetrahedron nesosilicates (olivine, topaz). Belongs here: any mineral whose defining structure is a silicon-oxygen framework, sheet or isolated tetrahedron. Does not belong here: an oxide mineral such as corundum or hematite, whose structure is a metal cation bonded directly to oxygen with no silicon framework, even where both classes co-occur in the same rock.