Top 10 minerals facts

Cullinan. The Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found, weighing 3,106.75 carats (621.35 g), discovered at a mine in Cullinan, South Africa, on 26 January 1905. It was cut into 105 diamonds including the Great Star of Africa, 530.2 carats, and the Lesser Star of Africa, 317.4 carats, both of which are now part of the British Crown Jewels.

Turkey as a country. The name Turquoise was established in the seventeenth century and came from the name of Turkey (turquoise is French for "Turkish"), because the mineral was first brought to Europe from Turkey. Ancient Romans called this rock Kalalit.

Arrow. Spinel ( /spɪˈnɛl/) is the magnesium aluminium member of the larger spinel group of minerals. It has the formula MgAl2O4 in the cubic crystal system. Its name comes from Latin "spina" (arrow). Balas ruby is an old name for a rose-tinted variety of spinel.

Lead. When large deposit of graphite was found in the 16th century in England, it was thought to be a form of lead. In many languages, the word for pencil literally means lead pen. (German Bleistift, Polish ołówek, Arabic قلم رصاص)

Near the volcano. It is sometimes mistakenly believed that diamonds are made from coals. High pressure and heat is required for the formation of diamonds from carbons, but these carbons are not the ones that form coal. Diamonds are formed deep under the surface and are brought up during outbreaks of volcanoes.

In deserts. Desert rose is the colloquial name given to rosette formations of crystal clusters of gypsum or baryte which contain abundant sand grains. Desert roses occur when the crystals form in arid sandy conditions, such as the evaporation of a shallow salt basin.

Piryte. The mineral piryte is an iron sulfide with the chemical formula FeS2. Pyrite is considered the most common of the sulfide minerals. Pyrite usually forms cuboid crystals, sometimes forming in close association to form raspberry-shaped masses called framboids.

Alexandrite. Pleochroism is an optical phenomenon in which a substance has different colors when observed at different angles, especially with polarized light. Alexandrite appears greenish in daylight where the full spectrum of visible light is present, and reddish in incandescent light which emits less green and blue spectrum.

Silicon was identified as an element by the French physicist Antoine Lavoisier (1743-1794) in 1787. Stable silicon isotopes are 28Si, 29Si and 30Si. Silicon in nature occurs in the form of silicon dioxide and silicates, never in a free state. It plays an important role in the body - it is necessary along with vitamin C for proper collagen synthesis, conditions faster wound healing, improves the condition of hair, skin and nails, and removes aluminum from the body. It is also a good medium for actively growing tumors (eg leukemia and glioma), so it is forbidden to supplement it.

Graphene has many unusual prop­er­ties. It is the strong­est material ever test­ed,­ef­fi­cient­ly conducts heat and elec­tric­i­ty and is nearly trans­par­en­t. The material , iso­lat­ed, and char­ac­ter­ized in 2004 by Andre Geim and Kon­stantin Novoselov at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Man­ches­ter. Research was informed by existing the­o­ret­i­cal de­scrip­tions of its com­po­si­tion, struc­ture, and prop­er­ties This work resulted in the two winning the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2010 "for ground­break­ing ex­per­i­ments re­gard­ing the two-di­men­sion­al material graphene."