Selenite (mineral) was filled with mineral-rich water that drove the crystals' growth. The largest of those crystals weighs 55 tons, is long, and is over 500,000 years old. Gypsum occurs on every continent and is the most common of all the sulfate minerals. Gypsum is formed as an evaporative mineral, frequently found in alkaline lake muds, clay beds, evaporated seas, salt flats, salt springs, and caves. It is frequently found in conjunction with other minerals such as, copper ores, sulfur and sulfides, silver, iron ores, coal, calcite, dolomite, limestone, and opal. Gypsum has been dated to almost every geologic age since the
Mineral evolution "essentially cosmic sedimentary rocks". The number of known species is roughly a dozen, although several more materials have been identified but not classified as minerals. Because it has a high crystallization temperature (about 4400 degrees Celsius), diamond was probably the first mineral to form. this was followed by graphite, oxides (rutile, corundum, spinel, hibonite), carbides (moissanite), nitrides (osbornite and silicon nitride) and silicates (forsterite and silicate perovskite (MgSiO)). These "ur-minerals" seeded the molecular clouds from which the Solar system was formed. After the formation of the Solar system, mineral evolution was driven by three primary mechanisms: the separation and concentration