A question from a 9-year-old girl from Sweden
How are Crystals made?
That’s a smart question! Crystals begin to form inside rocks buried deep within the Earth. As the hot liquid surrounding them cools or dries up, the crystals slowly harden, taking on their beautiful shapes and colors.This hardening process is called crystallization. Imagine being in a kitchen, where you see steam rising from a pot of soup as it cools down - similarly, under the Earth, warm minerals cool down, forming crystals. However, this process requires a lot of time, sometimes even thousands of years!
Crystals differ from each other for several reasons. First, each is made from different kinds of minerals that have their own special mixes and properties. Secondly, crystals can be different because of things like how hot or pressed they are underground. Thirdly, the types and amounts of minerals in the liquid determine which crystals will form. This means that even crystals formed in the same place can be very different due to these different reasons.
Imagine Mother Nature "cooking" these minerals in the depths of the Earth. When quartz, the most popular mineral on Earth, enters a very hot liquid underground and starts to cool or evaporate, it hardens into different crystals. Depending on other conditions, quartz can become a clear mountain crystal or a colored amethyst, rose quartz, or yellow citrine. From quartz, many different types of crystals can form through a wonderful crystallization process, turning liquid into beautiful solid crystals.
So, when we talk about how crystals are formed, it's important to remember that it's a very slow, natural process affected by temperature changes, different minerals, and time.