What is the most common group of minerals?

• A. Silicates
• B. Oxides
• C. Sulfates
• D. Carbonates

Answer: (A)

Silicates are the most common mineral group because the crust contains large amounts of oxygen and silicon, and silicate minerals are built from the SiO4 tetrahedron. These tetrahedra can link together in a variety of ways—isolated particles, single or double chains, sheets, or three-dimensional frameworks—creating an enormous diversity of minerals. That structural versatility yields many familiar minerals like quartz, feldspars, micas, pyroxenes, amphiboles, and olivine, which together make up the bulk of most rocks in the crust. In contrast, oxides, sulfates, and carbonates form under more specific conditions and with particular chemical environments, so they occur less abundantly in crustal rocks even though they matter in certain settings (such as carbonates in limestone or sulfates in evaporites).