Marble
Rock made of calcite, dolomite
Common
Limestone or dolostone recrystallised by heat and pressure: pure white from clean stone, veined by the clay, sand, iron oxide or chert it held, green where serpentine grew. Light passes a little way into it, which gives statues their waxy, living look.
Rock
- Kind of rock
- Metamorphic rock
- Rock family
- Marble
- Texture
- crystalline, not foliated
- Also contains
- Serpentine
- Deposits
- Skarn
- Metals
- Magnesium
- How it forms
- Carbonate rock recrystallises during the regional metamorphism of mountain building.
- Uses
- Sculpture since classical times, and polished stone for building; quarried today mostly in China, Italy, India and Spain.
Crystallography
- Habits
- Granular, Massive
Physical properties
- Luster
- Vitreous, Dull
- Colors
- white, pink, gray, green
- Transparency
- Opaque
Geology
- Origins
- Metamorphic
- Geography
- China, Italy, India, Spain, Turkey, Greece
Classification
- Rarity
- Common
- Gem quality
- No
Sources
- Marble. Wikipedia.
- S. Robertson, BGS Rock Classification Scheme, Volume 2: Classification of metamorphic rocks (Research Report RR 99-02). British Geological Survey, 1999.
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