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How Do Minerals Form?

-- Colin | February 23, 2020

Question:

After a supernova creates the heavier atoms and disperses them into space, how do those atoms “find each other” so that we have collections of gold and uranium etc instead of individual atoms of them evenly disbursed throughout all matter?

-- Colin

Answer:

Collections of atoms, or minerals, form through geologic processes in planets. These processes, which happen over millions of years, often involve gravitational differentiation, or separation, within material that has a radial temperature and pressure gradient. This causes atoms which are heavy to sink to the core while lighter atoms float to the top of a forming planet. This process leads to similar atoms, or minerals, to form into groups.

-- Jeff Mangum

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