|
 |
 |
|
Granite containing potassium feldspar, plagioclase feldspar, quartz, and biotite and/or amphibole
|
Close-up of granite from Yosemite National Park, valley of the Merced River
|
Orbicular granite in Caldera, Chile
|
Granite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their chemistry and mineralogy. 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 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 2.75 g/cm3.
The word granite comes from the Latin granum, a grain, in reference to the coarse-grained structure of such a crystalline rock.
|
 |
 |
|
Close-up of granite exposed in Chennai, India.
|
Quarrying granite for the Mormon Temple, Utah Territory.
|
The Stawamus Chief is a granite monolith in British Columbia
|
|
|
|
|
|
