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 of mineral species. However, mineral extinction is not truly irreversible; a lost mineral could emerge again if suitable environmental conditions were re-established. In the early Universe, there were no minerals because the only elements available were hydrogen, helium and trace amounts of lithium. Mineral formation became possible after heavier elements, including carbon, oxygen, silicon and nitrogen, were synthesized in stars. In the expanding atmospheres of red giants and the ejecta from supernovae, microscopic minerals formed at temperatures above 1500 degrees Celsius (°C). Evidence of these minerals can be found in interstellar grains incorporated into primitive meteorites called chondrites, which are