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Mica is an interesting silicate mineral. The silicate series is: quartz --> mica --> asbestos.

Quartz possesses three dimensional Si-O bonds which results in a crystal that is strong in every direction. Consequently, quartz is an exceptionally hard mineral.

Mica, on the other hand, only has strong bonds in two dimensions forming sheets. Within the sheets (the strong bonds), the bonding is O-Si(Al)-O. The aluminium causes funny things to happen to the charges on the silicon and oxygen resulting in the formation of cations (negative charge) and anions (positive charge). As such, ionic bonds form. It isn't pure ionic bonding, however. There is also covalent bonding going on too. I am not an expert on crystallography but I suspect the covalent bonding is more important than the ionic bonding in mica because there are more non-metallic atoms than metallic. However, what's for sure is that the bonding is part covalent and part ionic.

Between the layers, the bonding is weak (I assume van der Waals forces or something like that) allowing mica to form distinct layers in the 3D structure.

If you're interested, asbestos forms fibres in a tetrahedral shape.

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9y ago
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Q: What is the bond found across the sheets of mica?
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