Minerals form as hot magma cools inside the crust, or as lava hardens on the surface. When these liquids cool to the solid state, they form crystals. When magma remains deep below the surface, it cools slowly over many thousand years. Slow cooling leads to the formation of large crystals. If the crystals remain undisturbed while cooling, they grow by adding atoms according to a regular pattern. Magma closer to the surface cools much faster than magma that hardens deep below the ground. If magma errupts to the surface and becomes lava, the lava will also cool quickly and form minerals with small crystal.
Sometimes, the elements that form a mineral dissolve in hot water. A solution is a mixture in which one substance dissolves in anoth
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