Silicon Dioxide is a natural compound of silicon and oxygen found mostly in sand, Silica has three main crystalline varieties: quartz, tridymite, and cristobalite. Fine particulate silica dust from quartz rock causes over a long-term progressive lung injury, silicosis. (NCI04) Silicon dioxide is a silicon oxide made up of linear triatomic molecules in which a silicon atom is covalently bonded to two oxygens.