Granites

Granite

Granite is a light-colored igneous rock with grains large enough to be visible with the unaided eye. It forms from the slow crystallization of magma below Earth's surface. Granite is composed mainly of quartz and feldspar with minor amounts of mica, amphiboles, and other minerals. This mineral composition usually gives granite a red, pink, gray, or white color with dark mineral grains visible throughout the rock.

Granite is the rock most often quarried as a "dimension stone" . Granite is hard enough to resist abrasion, strong enough to bear significant weight, inert enough to resist weathering, and it accepts a brilliant polish. These characteristics make it a very desirable and useful dimension stone.

Granite is also used as a crushed stone or aggregate. In this form it is used as a base material at construction sites, as an aggregate in road construction, railroad ballast, foundations, and anywhere that a crushed stone is useful as fill.