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A mineral is a naturally occurring homogeneous solid with a definite chemical composition and a highly ordered atomic arrangement. Minerals (crystals) have an ordered internal arrangement of atoms. This ordered arrangement shows symmetry, i.e. the atoms are arranged in a symmetrical fashion on a three-dimensional network referred to as **a crystal lattice**.
**Gold** shows a characteristic a face-centered cubic lattice, which consists of the atoms (lattice points) identified in the corners and the center of each of the six faces of the cube. The length of the side of the unit cell is 0.407 nm. The atoms of gold are bonded covalently.
