Granite is a hard rock that consists of several elements: quartz, feldspar, micas, plagioclase. Granite is an important part of the earth's crust, while there is no exact evidence that this stone exists on other planets of the solar system, therefore geologists call this material the hallmark of the Earth. Granite is a very dense and durable mineral that is used primarily in construction.
Origin of granite
There are two ways to form granite. At the first, this stone is formed from magmatic melt, which cools down at great depths in the earth's crust and gradually petrifies. The result is a granular crystalline granite, consisting of grains of various sizes.
The second way of granite formation is from sedimentary, detrital and clayey rocks, which were moved by tectonic processes and fell into the deep layers of the earth's crust, where high temperatures, strong pressure and hot gases melted them, squeezed them and subjected them to granitization.
These processes took place several million years ago, when the Earth was subjected to mountain building processes.
Composition, types and characteristics of granite
Granite has a crystalline-granular structure. Its chemical composition is based on rocks enriched in calcium, iron, alkalis and magnesium. These are feldspars, quartz, dark-colored minerals. Potassium feldspar predominates in the composition, which gives the stone a certain shade, and quartz responds to the presence of translucent grains in granite. Also, other minerals, for example, monazite or ilmenite, can be included in the composition of this rock, but their content is very small, and they are not always present. The peculiarities of the composition of granite determine the existence of various types: plagigranite is a rock with a predominant composition of plagioclase and a small amount of feldspar; this type of granite has a pinkish color; and alaskite is a stone with a predominance of feldspar and without dark-colored materials. There are also species such as syenite, teshenite, diorite. Different types of granite have different colors: there are gray, black, red, pink granite.
This rock is very durable, so it has been used in construction since ancient times. Granite stone is unusually durable, it is almost unaffected by climatic conditions, it is water-resistant, and many architectural works created several centuries ago have perfectly survived to this day.
Among them are the famous Egyptian pyramids, some of which were built using granite blocks. Buildings were erected from this stone in Ancient Rome and India.
This breed is also easy to work with, well polished, takes any shape, you can even create mirror surfaces with it. Granite is also used for the manufacture of facing slabs, countertops, monuments, decorative items for the interior, tombstones.
