Indeed, pyrosilicates occur widely in nature as a class of silicate minerals, specifically the sorosilicates - though some sorosilicate minerals, such as gehlenite, replace one of the silicon atoms with tetracoordinated aluminium or boron, giving the isostructural anions AlSiO7−7 and BSiO7−7.

[5] Yuri Smolin and Yuri Shepelev determined in 1970 the crystal structures of pyrosilicates of rare earth elements with generic formula Ln2Si2O7, where "Ln" stands for either one of lanthanum, cerium, neodymium, samarium, europium, gadolinium, dysprosium, holmium, yttrium, erbium, thulium, or ytterbium.

[7] Rare earth pyrosilicates Ln2Si2O7 can be obtained by fusing the corresponding oxide Ln2O3 with silica in 1:2 molar ratio,[6] Single crystals can be grown by the Verneuil process[6] or the Czochralski method.

[7] Industrial pyrosilicate can be produced by the depolymerisation of metasilicate by alkali, which releases water on breaking the Si−O−Si bond.

[9] This proceeds according to the idealised equation Additional alkali will degrade the bonds further, instead yielding orthosilicate.