Marble and Granite Imports
Marble and Granite Imports
Kitchen and Bath Remodeling
Kitchen and Bath Remodeling
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granites usually have a medium- to coarse-grained texture. Occasionally, some individual crystals (phenocrysts) are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic texture is sometimes known as a porphyry.
Granites can be pink to gray in color, depending on their chemistry and mineralogy. By definition, granite is an igneous rock with at least 20% quartz by volume. Granite differs from granodiorite in that at least 35% of the feldspar in granite is alkali feldspar as opposed to plagioclase; it is the alkali feldspar that gives many granites a distinctive pink color.
Outcrops of granite tend to form tors and rounded massifs. Granites sometimes occur in circular depressions surrounded by a range of hills, formed by the metamorphic aureole or hornfels. Granite is usually found in the continental plates of the Earth's crust.
Granite is nearly always massive (lacking internal structures), hard and tough, and therefore it has gained widespread use as a construction stone.
The average density of granite is between 2.65 and 2.75 g/cm, its compressive strength usually lies above 200 MPa, and its viscosity at standard temperature and pressure is 3-6 • 10 Pa·s.
The word granite comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the coarse-grained structure of such a crystalline rock.
From Wikipedia
Marble is a rock resulting from metamorphism of sedimentary carbonate rocks, most commonly limestone or dolomite rock. Metamorphism causes variable recrystallization of the original carbonate mineral grains.
The resulting marble rock is typically composed of an interlocking mosaic of carbonate crystals. Primary sedimentary textures and structures of the original carbonate rock (protolith) have typically been modified or destroyed.
Pure white marble is the result of metamorphism of a very pure (silicate-poor) limestone or dolomite protolith. The characteristic swirls and veins of many colored marble varieties are usually due to various mineral impurities such as clay, silt, sand, iron oxides, or chert which were originally present as grains or layers in the limestone.
Green coloration is often due to serpentine resulting from originally high magnesium limestone or dolostone with silica impurities. These various impurities have been mobilized and recrystallized by the intense pressure and heat of the metamorphism.
From Wikipedia