Solved cryptogram
A mineral has one fixed recipe and a repeating crystal structure. A rock is usually a mix.
Earth Science Facts, sourced to U.S. National Park Service.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 72 letters over 20 different ones, graded medium.
Or go to the puzzle’s own page first.
What it means
Quartz is a mineral: silicon and oxygen in a set ratio, in a set arrangement, wherever you find it. Granite is a rock, and the sparkle in a countertop is quartz and feldspar and mica sitting side by side, each with its own recipe. That distinction is why a mineral gets a hardness and a chemical formula while a rock gets a description, and why the same mineral turns up in rocks that formed in completely different ways.
The claim comes from U.S. National Park Service.
- SourceU.S. National Park Service
- CollectionEarth Science Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length72 letters, 20 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- U.S. Geological Surveymedium, 73 letters
- U.S. National Park Servicemedium, 73 letters
- U.S. National Park Servicemedium, 77 letters
- U.S. National Park Servicemedium, 73 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- NOAAmedium, 74 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 75 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveymedium, 79 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 72 letters