Type of Rocks – All You Need to Know – Infographic
Mar 28, 2023
Technically, rocks are a fusion of various inorganic minerals and some organic substances. It is in the form of solid lumps with different strengths and other properties. It is a lengthy natural process glued them together.
A geologist classified rocks into three major categories:
- Igneous rocks
- Sedimentary rocks
- Metamorphic rocks
Ingenious Rocks:
It forms from the molten volcanic materials such as magma, which forms granite, and dark lava, which builds from basalt.
Let’s know different kinds of ingenious rocks in detail.
Shoshonite Rocks
It is basalts rich in potassium and consisting of other minerals like a high content of silica, alkalis, and low content of iron to form the solid rocks.
Aphanite Rock
It composed of highly fine-grained microscopic-sized mineral components, such as plagioclase feldspar, biotite, quartz, and orthoclase.
Adamellite Rock
It is an intrusive, felsic, and igneous rock. Orthoclase and plagioclase feldspars are equal in proportion in it.
Vogesite Rock
Vogesite is a species of lamprophyre and its name derived from the Vosges Mountains in France. It is ultra-potassic mafic igneous rocks with amphibole or biotite.
Essexite Rock
Its name is derived from Essex County. It is a holocrystalline plutonic rock with dark grey to black color.
Dunite Rock
It has the coarse-grained texture of the ultramafic composition. It has 90% olivine and other minerals.
Dacite Rock
It is grey or pale brown and yellow rock with white feldspars, and black crystals. It has silica as a major component.
Harzburgite Rock
Its names derived from Harz Mountain of Germany. It primarily consists of olivine and low-calcium pyroxene minerals.
Kimberlite Rock
Its name derived from Kimberley in South Africa. It is sometimes the carrier of diamonds and existing in a vertical structure called pipes or ingenious dykes. It forms thanks to an intricate intrusive process of kimberlitic magma.
Enderbite Rock
It belongs to the charnockite series and containing quartz, antiperthite, orthopyroxene, and magnetite.
Troctolite Rock
It is intrusive types of ingenious rock. It contains plagioclase feldspar and olivine.
Trondhjemite Rock
It mostly occurs within conjunction with tonalite and granodiorite as the TTG and greenstones, which are dominated by TTG in Archaen Terrance.
Granophyre Rocks
It is sub-volcanic rock chiefly consisting of quartz and alkali feldspar in angular intergrowths.
Trachyte Rock
It has little irregular steam cavities, which results in uneven surfaces giving a rough texture. Therefore, its name derived from this characteristic.
Sedimentary:
It forms from the eroded fragments of other rocks when the particles accumulated in low-lying areas and compressed it back into the rocks. The sand is a significant component, and it forms the sandstone. Similarly, mud forms mudstones, lime forms limestone.
The lime in limestone comes from seashells, diatoms, and other living creatures in the sea and land. Thus, sedimentation of living organisms into the rocks forms fossils and resulting in fossiliferous stones.
Let’s check the details of different kinds of sedimentary rocks.
Coquina Rock
It is transported, abraded, and mechanically sorted fragments of the shells of Mollusca and other sea shelled-species. It is varying in hardness and depends on cementing. It usually occurs in high-energy marine and lacustrine environments.
Monzonite Rock
The plagioclase and alkali feldspar occurs in Monzonite in equal amounts with less than 5% quartz by weight. When quartz exceeds beyond 5%, it terms as quartz Monzonite. With a high percentage of alkali feldspar, it grades as syenite.
Breccia Rock
In the Italian language, it means loose gravel. It composed of broken segments of minerals or clasts of other rocks.
Dolostone Rock
Dolomite is high in the percentage of the sedimentary carbonate rock called dolostone.
Flint Rock
It is steel like hard rock founds in the form of nodules and masses among the sedimentary rocks. Inside the nodules, it is dark grey, brown, white, or green with a glassy and waxy look. It highly used in building making as natural stone pavers and stone walls by cementing with lime mortar.
Geyserite Rock
It is found around geysers or hot springs and a form of opaline silica and also known as fiorite.
Gritstone Rock
It is hard and coarse-grained siliceous sandstone. It highly used in building material as ‘Grit’ when it composed of sandstone with angular sand grains in small pebble shapes.
Limestone Rock
It is a sedimentary rock that contains lime, which usually originates from shells and skeletons of marine organisms and animals buried beneath the sea bottom or under the grounds on the land. It has high application in the construction industry in different forms, such as natural paving stones, round stepping stones, wall stones, and much more.
Sandstone Rock
It forms due to weathering effects that are cementing the sand particles, which mainly consists of silicates like quartz and feldspar. Due to additions of different impurities within the minerals, sandstone gets different properties like strengths, colors, grains, and shapes.
It is an ideal material for the construction industry and mainly used as paving stones for internal and external applications. It is the best material for the creation of stepping stones, paving patios, paths in gardens and public places, in the walls, and even in the slabs.
Wackestone Rock
It is a kind of mudstone and composes of more than 10% grains. Being a type of limestone with carbonate rocks, it has some usage in stepping stone or external paving stone with fine cuts.
Siltstone Rock
Its name derived from its high composition of silt-sized particles with grains. Due to its smaller pores and high propensity, it used as stepping stones and external paving stones, but not in walls or slabs of big sizes.
Lignite Rock
Lignite or brown coal is a combustible rock with low heat content. It consists of 70% carbon material, so heavily used in the generation of electricity in power stations across the world.
Travertine Rock
It forms around mineral containing hot streams originated from the geo-thermally heated place on the surfaces and under the land/ground. It is a kind of limestone with high strength and durability. It is an excellent material for paving patios and garden paths. Recent tech advancements have enabled its usage in internal paving, wall cladding, and even for non-slippery applications inside the homes and offices.
Metamorphic:
When ingenious and sedimentary rocks transformed by land or water pressures, heat, or fluid intrusions and resulting in the unique rock forms. Thanks to the metamorphism process, it called metamorphic rocks.
Metamorphism took place through the extreme press when tetanic forces submerged the rocks into deep beneath surfaces of the earth. Similarly, heat from the magma or hot springs also induces metamorphism into the rocks.
When limestone is metamorphosed, it turns into a marble category of rocks. Similarly, sandstone turns into quartzite.
Let’s explore the details of different kinds of ingenious rocks.
Eclogite Rock
It forms at high-pressure zones of the earth’s crust. So, it is dense and some unique types of diamonds found within the rocks.
Gneiss Rock
It forms at high temperature and high pressure. Banding appears in cross-sections of the rock and forming patterns due to mineral arrangement into parallel lines of vertical layers.
Agate Rock
It is a cryptocrystalline variety of silica with fine grains and bright colors. It was highly used in the creation of artistic hard stone carving materials.
Marble Rock
It occurs due to the metamorphism of sedimentary rocks like limestone and dolomite. It consists of interlocking of a mosaic of carbonate crystals. Various mineral impurities are resulting in colors, swirls, and veins. It is extensively used as internal paving stones and some extent as external paving stones with different characteristics of the material.
Amphibolite Rock
It consists of amphibole and plagioclase feldspar. It may have little or no quartz. It is a preferred material like natural stones for paving and facing of buildings due to its high polishing, hardness, an attractive texture, and dark colors. It also used in paving patios and pools.
Quartzite Rock
It is a metamorphosed quartz sandstone. Tectonic compression and heating formulate quartzite rocks with grains and colors. Thanks to its hardness and decorative properties, it used as natural flooring tiles, stair-stepping stones, roofing tiles, and covering walls. It is harder than granite so an ideal material for various paving internal as well as external applications.
Skarn Rock
It is hard, and coarse-grained rocks form by the metasomatism process, and rich in calc-silicate minerals. It provides ore minerals for metal formation.
Phylite Rock
It is metamorphosed slate rocks with foliated structure and with fine-grained white mica in a preferred orientation.
Granulite Rock
It is high-grade rocks with granulite facies. It mainly composes of feldspar and sometimes quartz.
Eclogite Rock
It looks beautiful thanks to a variety of color shades from red to pink and green. It sometimes used as paving stones for external usages.
Pseudotachylite Rock
It is glassy in appearance with dark colors. It has radial and concentric crystals of fine-grained materials.
Slate Rock
It is homogeneous, foliated, and fine-grained rock compose of volcanic ash and clay. When it cuts with the latest tools in the right orientation, it provides ideal materials stone paving as floor tiles, roofing tiles, and myriads of various building purposes.
It is water-resistant, durable, and beautiful. It has two lines of breakability. The first is cleavage and the second is grain. Thus, it is an ideal material to split into thin stone sheets with a natural appearance. It highly used as natural paving stones for patios, garden stepping, paths, swimming pool decks, coping, sills, and driveways.
Conclusion:
We have learned about a lot of useful natural stone used in the construction industry as natural stones for paving patios, internal flooring, stepping stones, sills, kitchen table tops, the cladding of wall, structured walls, foundations, and a variety of building purposes.
World of Stone in the USA is a treasure of various natural stones used in paving, stepping, treads, sills, coping, pier caps, and similar interior and exterior applications. Visit to know details of various stones as well as get free consulting services for your next construction project or ideas.
