Gallery

These are some of my favorite kinds of stone that I have acquired from the Granite Shop refuse stream. There is a frequent problem with the names given to them. First, although the kind might have a type locality (Costa Smeralda from the Emerald Coast of Sardinia, Labradorite from Labrador, in practice the same kind of stone can come from all over the planet. The Labradorite at the Granite Shop mainly comes from Madagascar but this calcium-enriched feldspar can also be found in Poland, Norway, Finland, Slovakia, China, Australia, the United States, and, of course, Labrador where it was first described. Similarly, although Costa Smeralda is named for the coast of Sardinia, it is quarried mainly in Iran. 

A second problem is that many different kinds of stone are called "granite" even though they are not igneous in origin and lack granite's characteristic coarse crystalline structure. Thus, Costa Smeralda is usually called "granite" even though it is a highly metamorphosed epidote gneiss. Similarly, Indian Peninsular Gneiss is usually called "Juparana Granite" even though it is not from Brazil and is not granite. And Palladio "granite" is a metamorphosed breccia. Thus, the names of the kinds of stone are not much help in figuring out what they are; instead one must usually consult geological maps of the places the stone is quarried.