Quartz — a common mineral in teeth

A GROUP of mineralogists led by scientists Valentina Katkova from the Komi Institute of Geology has studied more than 200 second and milk teeth.

The scientists wanted to find out, what minerals our teeth contain. The scientists made tooth sections and examined them under microscope. X-ray-structure analysis and microprobe analysis were also made.

The scientists found that our teeth contain a large collection of various minerals.

The human body is quite a favourable environment for forming of minerals. In most of the organs and tissues apatite takes the first place, in teeth quartz is found more often — in each of the second teeth. In nature quartz looks very much like glass and forms beautiful large oblong crystals.

In the teeth the scientists found only tiny (less than 1 mm in diameter) round grains, yet they were real quartz crystals, mostly white or transparent, sometimes black or pink, according to a press release from the Komi Institute of Geology.

Quartz usually is formed in teeth, affected by caries, but in one healthy but defective cutting tooth the scientists found half a hundred crystals. It seems that quartz is formed from tooth fillings (almost everybody has them), because they are based on powdered quartz. Fillings also support apatite growth, which occurs a bit less often than quartz.

Apatit is a very useful mineral, because it contains much phosphor. It is not yet known why human teeth contain it. It is usually found in the dentine root canal in the form of corals or spike-shaped crystals. What medics call a `denticle' turned out to be a sort of apatite.

Denticles are small round particles on pulp and canal walls, and they are formed as a tooth reaction to microbe infection.

Besides quartz and apatite, human teeth contain other minerals as well.

In the cement whewellite, a sort of calcium compound, sometimes is found, in the pulp camera of one tooth, affected by parodontosis, the scientists found opal.

Feldspar grains, native iron, aragonite, siderite, acanthite, hematite and graphite also were discovered.

Tiny rhombic crystals of whitlockite, calcium phosphate, were found at the patches of destructed enamel. Dentine and pulp also produce organic minerals — glass-like spheres and cylinders of hydrocarbon composition.

Polymetallic compounds are formed deep inside the teeth covered with a metal crowns, including elements such as chromium, iron, zinc, tin, nickel and bismuth. Sometimes the amount of bismuth reaches nearly around 85 per cent of the inclusion mass.

Healthy teeth may contain certain elements such as aluminium, iron, tin and lead and sometimes even microparticles of native gold, silver and rare-earth metals.

Much to the surprise of the scientists, one milk-tooth had a cluster of crystals, half-composed of aluminium.