Home Improvement: Marble Design Ideas

It will be difficult to put marble in a simple category. It is classic, contemporary, stylish, and natural and so on. In short, marble can be best described as the most aesthetic option to increase the value of your house. A little bit of planning can make your house as attractive as a palace. So, just in case you need some of them, these lines will give you that.

It is a good idea to use marble in the kitchen and you can select from varied options. However, the table and countertops are the most obvious. Like any other part of your house, your kitchen too will get a new look with the marble tiles. Remember that the marble alone can make it beautiful. However, if you are looking to make it extraordinary, you have to take little care about the installation and the accents. The beveled edges, the sinks, cabinetry – all are important aspects that would decide whether the atmosphere is up to the standard of the marble.

You should also add the mosaic tiles to walls, back splash area and even on your table-top. A hot pan holder made of marble can also be a very good idea to decorate the kitchen. There are plenty of other things that are available in the market. All you need to do is to conceive the kitchen that you see in your dreams.

Bathroom is another very important place where you can use the marble splendidly. In previous times, this could have been an absurd thought since the marble often stains in the presence of water. However, the modern sealers have successfully driven off this threat. Naturally, you can use marble in the bathroom without any worry at all. However, the honed finishes are the most suitable for the bathroom floors since they offer better grips. Still, if you are very fond of the polished finish, you should use the mats. Marble can be also used for the countertops, mirror trims, tubs and many other places.

The vessel sinks made of the marble are another means that will lend your bathroom a touch of sophistication. It can replace the vanities or can set on them as well. The Jacuzzis and the Roman tubs can attain greater beauty if marble wraps them up.

Another very stylish use of marble is the fireplace. This will make it the center of attraction in your room. Marble can be used both for the mantel and for the surrounding. Until recent years, they were very expensive and beyond the reach of the common homeowners. However, these days the standard marble mantels are available in a really affordable price. Like any other products of marble, they are very easy to install as well. Naturally, the consumers can save money by avoiding the professional installers.

Marble can be also used to construct the bar tops. Also, marble is a good choice to decorate the living room, den, bedrooms and the dining room. In short, there is no place where marble will look awkward.

Granite: An Overview Of Its Nature And Origin

Granite is an igneous rock formed from magma below the earth’s surface due to pressure and heat. Granite is found at a depth usually greater than 1.5 km and up to 50 km within thick continental crust of the Earth.

Geochemical origins of Granite
Granitoids are a ubiquitous component of the Earth’s crust. They have crystallized from magmas at its eutectic point due to heat and igneous differentiation. Alkali feldspar (rich in potassium) and quartz (SiO2), are two of the major defining constituents of granite.
Though the generation of granite is still into question among geologists, the composition and origin of the magma which differentiates into granite, leaves certain geochemical and mineral evidence as to what the granite's parental rock was. For instance, granite which is formed from melted sediments may have more alkali feldspar, whereas a granite derived from melted basalt may be richer in plagioclase feldspar.

Alphabet soup classification
· The 'alphabet soup' scheme of Chappell & White divides granites into I-type granite and S-type granite. Both of these types of granite are formed by melting of high grade metamorphic rocks.
· M-type or mantle derived granites are those granites which are sourced from crystallized mafic magmas that are of unique kinds.
· A-type or anorogenic granites are formed above volcanic "hot spot" activity. The rhyolites of the Yellowstone caldera are examples of volcanic equivalents of A-type granite.


Granitization
Granitization states that - “granite is formed by extreme metasomatism of fluids bringing in elements like potassium and removing others like calcium to transform the metamorphic rock into granite”.
In-situ granitisation or melting by metamorphism is recognized where leucosome and melanosome textures are present in gneisses. In such cases the solid rock melting requires high temperature. At the same time essential presence of water as well as other volatiles serves to be a catalyst.

Ascent and emplacement
Geologists have debated the ascent and emplacement of granite bulk that occurs within the upper continental crust.
There are two major hypotheses for the ascent of magma through the crust:
1. Stokes Diapir
2. Fracture Propagation
The basic idea of the Stokes diapir hypotheses is that magma will rise through the crust as a single mass through buoyancy. With its ascent it heats the wall rocks. This causes it to behave as a power-law fluid. Nonetheless since rocks and the upper crust of the earth do not deform hence this with the passage of time cools and solidifies.

Nowadays fracture propagation is the mechanism preferred by many geologists as it largely eliminates the major problems of moving a huge mass of magma through cold brittle crust.

Mechanisms for emplacing large batholiths to make room for Granitic magma:

· Stoping - where the granite cracks the wall rocks and pushes upwards as it removes blocks of the overlying crust.
· Assimilation - where the granite melts its way up into the crust and removes overlying material in its way.
· Inflation - where the granite body inflates under pressure and is injected into position.