Hey, just wanted to verify that this material that I find almost everywhere is the mineral quartz and not a rock.
Pure quartz is silicon dioxide (SiO2) so there's not much there a plant can use as a nutrient. There's a potential for trace elements, however, as some silicates have impurities that give them a color other than the clear of pure quratz - that's how we get rose quartz, smoky quartz, rutilated quartz, amethyst, citrine, etc. But even if nutrients are present, quartz dissolves extremely slowly. Otherwise many of the world's sand beaches wouldn't exist.
