I mean, how do different kind of minerals in a special rock remain next to each other?
In geology rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of one or more minerals.
Three major groups of rocks are defined: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic.
Igneous rock forms through the cooling and solidification of magma or lava.
These have diverse properties, depending on their composition and the temperature and pressure conditions in which they were formed.
The chemical abundance and the rate of cooling of magma typically forms a sequence known as Bowen's reaction series. Most major igneous rocks are found along this scale.
Sedimentary rocks are formed at the earth's surface by the accumulation and cementation of fragments of earlier rocks, minerals, and organisms or as chemical precipitates and organic growths in water.
The former are called clastic and the later chemical.
Metamorphic rocks are formed by subjecting any rock type—sedimentary rock, igneous rock or another older metamorphic rock—to different temperature and pressure conditions than those in which the original rock was formed.
In all these rocks all the minerals may or may not have been formed at the same time, it's the varied processes that results in formation and later restoration of them.
The pressure, temperature, chemical composition, depth of emplacement, tectonic setting, Eh, pH conditions so on are important in binding the minerals together in one particular geological environment rather than any kind of bonding.
if any changes are made in any one of these parameters, the mineral assemblage will accordingly change, i.e., a new mineral will form, an old mineral will alter etc.
This is all I understood about rocks so far.
Dear Mr. Sangsefifi:
Your answer is far too general to be answered in a proper way. A rock does not only consist of solid components such as minerals, but also liquid components, mostly water, and gas in the natural setting of rocks both of which you cannot ignore. This simple tripartite approach alone will show you how far-reaching and all-embracing an answer must be.
H.G.Dill
Dear Mr. Sangsefidi,
as Mr. Dill already stated there is a bunch of different form of chemical bonding. It depends on the kind of rock (sedimentary, igneous, metamorphic), it's weathering state, the kind of minerals, gaseous and aqueous phases. So you can have ionic bonds, atomic bonds, metallic bonds, van der Waals bonds and so on.
To what kind of rock do you refer?
Best Regards
Ebrahim,
Your question has such an extraordinarily wide-ranging scope that in a very real way it encompasses the whole of geological science.
The flippant answer to “What kind of chemical bonds exists in rocks?” would be “all types”, but that response would be disrespectful to the serious intent of your question. Your supplemental statement “how do different kind of minerals in a special rock remain next to each other?” itself requires clarification. In a real sense all rocks are uniquely formed and therefore all are special, so I think that you mean “in a specific rock”. As Asoori has already discussed above the three major groups namely; igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic rocks, I will focus on a small part of your question and choose as my answer to discuss mono-mineralic aeolian sedimentary grainstone rocks or put more simply - mobile sand dunes.
Aeolian sand dunes can be extraordinarily pure in mineral content, and consist simply of mature silica sand (for example Erg dune sands from the Sahara), or oolitic carbonate dune sand (e.g. the coastal dunes of West Caicos Island in the Caribbean) or gypsum dune sand (e.g. White Sands, New Mexico) depending on their environment of formation and deposition.
In each case, silica, carbonate and gypsum, these sands are mobile because their grains are not cemented together. The easiest way to stabilize these mobile deposits is to add water. The water binds the grains together and so the simplest rock forming bond has to be the Van der Waals force between the liquid water and the mineral grain. If the water bound sediment is then frozen, the result is a solid rock cemented by ice. Water is an extraordinary solvent, capable of dissolving a wide range of minerals, and in the simplest example of adding pure water to a mono-mineralic sand, the water will dissolve the relevant mineral, easily in the case of gypsum, or poorly in the case of silica, and initiate the formation of inter-granular cement. It is the cement that most effectively binds a friable granular sediment into an indurated rock.
Most sedimentary rocks are not mono-mineralic but are formed from a mixture of crystalline silicate minerals, aluminosilicate clays, organic chemicals and precipitated chemical salts depending on their environment of deposition. The process of rock formation involves crystal stability, mineral diagenesis, cementation, pressure induced compaction, fluid expulsion, heating, fissure dissolution and fracturing (and this is not a complete list). These constituent disciplines all form a crucial part of geology and in a very real way are also a subset of materials science in its broadest sense.
Dear Ebrahim,
.You asked, " What chemical bonds hold different minerals coherently in different rocks?" Your question is very simple. While minerals are chemical, inorganic substances having a definite chemical composition and formula, thus held together chemically by the various bonds which you and the other contributors beautifully described above; rocks are not so. They are physical aggregates of minerals held/compacted together mostly by pressure because they formed under the earth.. For instance, feldspars, pyroxenes, hornblendes, magnetites occur together in basic igneous rocks just as quartz, and micas are held in acid igneous rocks, and in sedimentary rocks, organic matter and mineral matter (inorganic) are also so held. Their coherence is not chemical.
Also while you can separate rocks physically into their component minerals, you cannot so physically separate minerals into component constituent atoms because they are chemically bonded.
All the best.
Obianuju P. Umeji
The question is what kind of forces/bonds hold together different minerals which are adjacent to each other in the same rock? This is a rather difficult question. It must be an attractive force. An hypothesis could be that the valence electrons of the atoms of the adjacent minerals are atracted by the protons in the nucleous of the corresponding adjacent minerals. This looks lyke a covalent bond although, as far as I know, there is no literature on that.
I think is important to keep going with possible answers.
Sincerely,
Albert Jornet
I've had the same question for the last couple of weeks now. So far, this is the only discussion I've been able to find online. Maybe thinking about friction and what friction is will help. https://www.school-for-champions.com/science/friction_causes.htm
The bonding in rocks depends on composition, but since most rocks contain silicon (Si) and oxygen (O) then you are dealing with covalent bonds in some semi-crystal form. If the rock has a significant alkali or alkaline metals with oxygen or other highly electronegative elements more of the bonds will be ionic. If there is a significant amount of metal (iron) there will be more metallic bonding. Rocks can be a mixture of all these things, so it gets complex.