Natural stone under the microscope

Posted September 19, 2017

Any natural stone that we want to commercialize must have a “petrographic study” that contains a microscopic description of the rock and allows to identify exactly what type of rock is.

To do this, a thin sheet, i.e. a section of the rock of 30 microns thick (0.03 mm) is prepared and attached to a slide for observation under the polarization microscope.

Here we study, among others:
 Mineral composition: identification, description and percentages.
 Grain size
 Distribution of components
 Empty spaces: cracks and pores
 Possible evidence of deformation, alteration to mineral scale, etc.

The importance of the set of all these characteristics is that they determine the physical properties of the rock itself, and therefore how it is going to behave during its use as a product in a particular work.

In the following images, we can appreciate the compositional and textural differences among different types of rocks available in the CKP product catalogue. Note the difference in grain size, composition and arrangement of minerals among rocks.

Pearl White