Silicate facts for kids
In chemistry, a silicate is a compound consisting of one or more central silicon atoms that are surrounded by electronegative ligands.
The most common silicate species consist of silicon with oxygen as the ligand. Silicate anions, with a negative net electrical charge, must have that charge balanced by other cations to make an electrically neutral compound.
Silicate rock
In geology and astronomy, the term silicate is used to denote types of rock that consist predominantly of silicate minerals.
On Earth, a wide variety of silicate minerals occur in an even wider range of combinations as a result of the processes that form and re-work the crust. These processes include partial melting, crystallization, fractionation, metamorphism, weathering and diagenesis. Living things also contribute to the silicate cycle near the Earth's surface. A type of plankton known as diatoms construct their exoskeletons, known as tests, from silica. The tests of dead diatoms are a major constituent of deep ocean sediment
Images for kids
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Diatomaceous earth, as viewed under a microscope, is a soft, siliceous, sedimentary rock made up of the frustules (shells) of single cell diatoms. Diatom cell walls are made up of biogenic silica; silica synthesised in the diatom cell by the polymerisation of silicic acid. This image of diatomaceous earth particles in water is at a scale of 6.236 pixels/μm, the entire image covers a region of approximately 1.13 by 0.69 mm.
