What Do Marble Rocks Look Like

Marble is a metamorphic rock that forms when limestone is subjected to the heat and pressure of metamorphism.

What do marble rocks look like. Petrographically marbles are massive rather than thin layered and consist of a. In its pure form marble is a white stone with a crystalline and sugary appearance consisting of calcium carbonate caco 3 usually marble contains other minerals including quartz graphite pyrite and iron oxides these minerals can give marble a pink brown gray green or variegated coloration. It is composed primarily of the mineral calcite caco 3 and usually contains other minerals such as clay minerals micas quartz pyrite iron oxides and graphite under the conditions of metamorphism the calcite in the limestone recrystallizes to form a rock that is. A bluish marble looks exactly like the earth with some swirls of color white scattered along the surface.

What does marble look like. Because they look so much like common materials such as lava rocks or slag from a smelting plant it s easy to misidentify them. Unlike terrestrial materials meteorites have a crust formed by the high heat generated by atmospheric friction and they usually look blacker than surrounding rocks. Sea water high in magnesium flows through porous limestone and replaces some of the calcium with magnesium turning limestone into dolostone.

Marble is a metamorphic rock formed when limestone is subjected to high pressure or heat. Marble granular limestone or dolomite i e rock composed of calcium magnesium carbonate that has been recrystallized under the influence of heat pressure and aqueous solutions. It looks like a round marble that s redish pink. In the formation of marble metamorphism causes variable recrystallization of the original carbonate mineral grains which results in interlocking mosaic of carbonate crystals.

It is quite durable in dry climates as in the mediterranean countries where ancient marble structures survive. Fossils are plants or animals that have been preserved in rock as organic carbon chitin or some mineral that replaced the original tissue. Commercially it includes all decorative calcium rich rocks that can be polished as well as certain serpentines verd antiques. Like other metamorphic rocks marble has no fossils and any layering that appears in it probably does not correspond to the original bedding of the precursor limestone.