how do you make a model of the mineral quartz?

Question

how do you make a model of the mineral quartz?

Answer 1

I assume you are talking about like the molecules and atoms bare bones type deal right?



Well the formula for quartz and its polymorphs (if you are interested in stishovite, coesite etc.) is SiO2. The structures however vary considerably so it would be good to make note of which SiO2 is being referred to, its most likely quartz but its good to cover your bases.



So it is SiO2, which you can probably figure out how to make a model for, haha hint Si is in the middle

But if you have to do multiple combined it can have a range of structures from dipyramidal or just anything with a relatively trigonal shape.

Answer 2

With quartz, the silicon and oxygen orient in a regular tetrahedron (four-faced pyramid, each face being an equilateral triangle) with Si in the center and shared oxygens at the four corners.



go here for way more info than you need and probably not simplistic enough:

http://www.quartzpage.de/gen_struct.html



If I were making a stick model, I would just make the four-cornered pyramid using styrofoam balls.