Granite

Natural Granite are both beautiful and durable, and easy to clean and maintain. They come in a wide range of beautiful colours.

The Serious Side of Stone

Granite is a polymineral stone made up of quartz, feldspar and mica. The mica may be white or black. Some types of Granite contain both.

The texture is a mosaic of grains without spaces between them thus making it a low porosity stone. This porosity is caused by feldspar and mica cleavage and may be altered by hydrolysis of the feldspar. Different types of granite are differentiated by their mineral make up as well as their texture.

The resistance to abrasives and the stone’s hardness makes Granite much stronger than Marble and Limestone. The thick grained varieties of Granite are less resistant than tight grained stone. The tight grained stones sometimes contain large crystals which are often feldspar standing out against a background of smaller homogeneous crystals (porphyric Granite).

The colour is usually determined by the type of mica and abundance of black mica (biotite). Granite often shows dark spots called schlieren.