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Physical Science 100

Molecular Models

Introduction to Silicate Minerals

The silicate ion is the building block for silicate minerals. The silicate ion can connect with itself in a variety of ways to create different structures.

Ways that silicate ions can be arranged:

Representations of the silicate ion:

We represent can represent the silcate ion with balls and sticks, or as tetrahedra with an implied oxygen atom at each point and a silicon atom at the center

oxygen silicon


Instructions for manipulating images.

To rotate the molecule, move the cursor inside the Jmol frame while holding down the left mouse button. To enlarge the molecule, move the cursor inside the Jmol frame, simultaneously shift and left click the mouse then drag the mouse downward; to reduce molecule size, shift-click and drag the mouse upward... To access a pop-up menu use the right button on a PC or do a command-click on a Mac while the cursor is inside the java frame. To measure a bond distance, double-click on two atoms. To measure a bond angle, do double-click, single-click, double-click on three atoms.
 
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