Table of Contents
What is quartzite?
Quartzite is one of the most physically durable and chemically resistant rocks found at Earth’s surface. When the mountain ranges are worn down by weathering and erosion, less-resistant and less-durable rocks are destroyed, but the quartzite remains.
What is the difference between quartzite and quartz arenite?
A few geologists use the word “quartzite” for sedimentary rocks that have an exceptionally high quartz content. This usage is falling out of favor but remains in older textbooks and other older publications. The name “quartz arenite” is a more appropriate and less confusing name for these rocks.
What gives quartzite its green color?
Inclusions of fuchsite (a green chromium-rich variety of muscovite mica) can give quartzite a pleasing green color. If the quartzite is semitransparent to translucent, the flat flakes of mica can reflect light to produce a glittering luster known as aventurescence.
Is quartzite commonly mislabeled as marble?
I’ll get right to the point: quartzite is commonly mislabeled. Some quartzite is the real deal, but sometimes marble or dolomitic marble are labeled as quartzite. Because each of these stones behaves differently, people might understandably conclude that quartzite is variable.
Quartzite is also mined in Brazil for use in kitchen countertops. Quartzite is a decorative stone and may be used to cover walls, as roofing tiles, as flooring, and stairsteps. Its use for countertops in kitchens is expanding rapidly. It is harder and more resistant to stains than granite.
Is orthoquartzite the same as quartz?
By extension, the term orthoquartzite has occasionally been more generally applied to any quartz-cemented quartz arenite. Orthoquartzite (in the narrow sense) is often 99% SiO 2 with only very minor amounts of iron oxide and trace resistant minerals such as zircon, rutile and magnetite.
Why is quartzite so pure in Ireland?
Their purity may reflect unusual conditions of chemical weathering, at a time when the Earth’s atmosphere was beginning to be oxygenated. In Ireland areas of quartzite are found across the west and northwest, with Errigal in Donegal as the most prominent outcrop.
Is quartzite resistant to chemical weathering?
Quartzite is very resistant to chemical weathering and often forms ridges and resistant hilltops.