What forms occur naturally on the Earth?

So we've heard a little bit about silicates already.

So silicon likes to bond with atoms of other elements, normally oxygen.

Um, so when there are four oxygens around silicon, that's a sort of basic silicate structure.

What can happen then is that the oxygen can bond with other metals, magnesium and iron, and in fact, in some cases, these-- when these build these big framework structures that we've heard about, um, aluminum can sort of swap in for the silicon, if you like.

And those are the sort of silicate minerals.

There's lots of different ways those, um, silicate shapes can come together to form these crystals, and there's a whole array of different minerals.

Tell us what diatoms are in the oceans and how they regulate our atmosphere, and what's silicon got to do with it?

So silicon likes to-

to-Bond with atoms of other elements, normally oxygen.

Um, so when there are four oxygens around silicon, that's a sort of basic silicate structure.

What can happen then is that the oxygen can bond with other metals, magnesium and iron, and in fact, in some cases, these-- when these build these big framework structures that we've heard about, um, aluminum can sort of swap in for the silicon, if you like.

And those are the sort of silicate minerals.

There's lots of different ways those s-um, silicate shapes can come together to form these crystals, and there's a whole array of different minerals.

But that's probably one of the most common ways that we find silicon on the Earth.

Tell us what diatoms are in the oceans and how they regulate our atmosphere and what's silicon got to do with it.