China stone is a medium grained,
feldsparFeldspars are a group of rock-forming tectosilicate minerals which make up as much as 60% of the Earth's crust....
-rich partially decomposed
graniteGranite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their...
characterized by the absence of
ironIron is a metallic chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. Iron is a group 8 and period 4 element and is therefore classified as a transition metal. Iron and iron alloys are by far the most common metals and the most common ferromagnetic materials in everyday use...
-bearing minerals. Its mineral content includes
quartzQuartz is the second most abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust . It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO
4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO
2.There are many different varieties of...
, feldspar and
micaThe mica group of sheet silicate minerals includes several closely related materials having highly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic with a tendency towards pseudo-hexagonal crystals and are similar in chemical composition...
; accessory minerals include
kaoliniteKaolinite is a clay mineral with the chemical composition Al2Si2O54. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina octahedra...
and fluorspar. It is found in one area of
CornwallCornwall is a county of England in the United Kingdom, forming the tip of the south-western peninsula of Great Britain. It is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Taken with the...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and is the UK’s only indigenous source of feldspathic material currently being commercially extracted. Production levels in the four years up to 2003 averaged 2,800 tonnes per year.
Other names include Cornish or Cornwall stone.
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China stone is a medium grained,
feldsparFeldspars are a group of rock-forming tectosilicate minerals which make up as much as 60% of the Earth's crust....
-rich partially decomposed
graniteGranite is a common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their...
characterized by the absence of
ironIron is a metallic chemical element with the symbol Fe and atomic number 26. Iron is a group 8 and period 4 element and is therefore classified as a transition metal. Iron and iron alloys are by far the most common metals and the most common ferromagnetic materials in everyday use...
-bearing minerals. Its mineral content includes
quartzQuartz is the second most abundant mineral in the Earth's continental crust . It is made up of a continuous framework of SiO
4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall formula SiO
2.There are many different varieties of...
, feldspar and
micaThe mica group of sheet silicate minerals includes several closely related materials having highly perfect basal cleavage. All are monoclinic with a tendency towards pseudo-hexagonal crystals and are similar in chemical composition...
; accessory minerals include
kaoliniteKaolinite is a clay mineral with the chemical composition Al2Si2O54. It is a layered silicate mineral, with one tetrahedral sheet linked through oxygen atoms to one octahedral sheet of alumina octahedra...
and fluorspar. It is found in one area of
CornwallCornwall is a county of England in the United Kingdom, forming the tip of the south-western peninsula of Great Britain. It is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic Ocean, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Taken with the...
in the
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
and is the UK’s only indigenous source of feldspathic material currently being commercially extracted. Production levels in the four years up to 2003 averaged 2,800 tonnes per year.
Other names include Cornish or Cornwall stone. It is sometimes confused with
petuntsePetuntse , also spelled petunse, is a historic term for a wide range of micaceous or feldspathic rocks. However, all will have been subject to geological decomposition processes that result in a material which, after processing, is suitable as an ingredient in some ceramic formulations...
, which although somewhat similar, is a different rock.