Curated playlist
Industrial minerals
- SandstoneSandstone is just sand that turned into rock. It makes up roughly a fifth to a quarter of sedimentary rock.
- GneissGneiss gets its stripes when buried rock is squeezed harder in one direction than others.
- GraniteGranite gets harder the longer it lies exposed. That foiled Medieval stoneworkers who lacked tempered chisels.
- LimestoneLimestone is soft enough to scratch with a coin. Yet it holds pyramids, cathedrals and a third of the world's petroleum.
- DiamondIn 1772, Antoine Lavoisier burned a diamond with focused sunlight. It vanished into carbon dioxide.
- GypsumGypsum, a mineral soft enough to scratch with a fingernail, becomes plaster when heat drives out its water.
- AsbestosAsbestos carries a name that Pliny the Elder applied incorrectly. Its Greek name, amiantos, meant pure.
- KaoliniteKaolinite, a soft white clay mineral, gets eaten on purpose by some people.
- SulfurSulfur, the chemical element with the symbol S and atomic number 16, turned up on Mars in July 2024, and nobody was looking for it. The Curiosity rover drove over a rock and crushed it. Inside the broken stone sat crystals of elemental…
- SlateSlate can lose up to 50 percent of its original volume as mud squeezes into rock. It sometimes still preserves fossils.