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Many factors influence the type of silica tetrahedral structure that develops when silicate minerals form; the most important is the relative availability of silicon and other cations in the environment in which the mineral crystallizes. Environments with abundant silicon (and therefore silica tetrahedra) tend to favor the linkage of silica tetrahedra through shared oxygen ions. Environments depleted in silicon tend to favor the linkage of the oxygen ions in silica tetrahedra to cations other than silicon. In such situations, silica tetrahedra tend to link to coordination polyhedral elements other than silica tetrahedra.

If none of the oxygen ions in a silica tetrahedron bond to other silicon ions in adjacent tetrahedra, the silica tetrahedron will occur as an isolated tetrahedral unit in the mineral structure. If all the oxygen ions in a silica tetrahedron bond to other silicon ions of adjacent tetrahedra, the silica tetrahedra form a three‐dimensional framework structure. If some of the oxygen ions in the silica tetrahedra are bonded to silicon ions in adjacent tetrahedra and others are bonded to other cations in adjacent coordination polyhedra, a structure that is intermediate between totally isolated silica tetrahedra and three‐dimensional frameworks of silica tetrahedra will develop.