Granite

Several varieties of granite were used in the construction of this building. This rock is 380 million years old, and was used to face and trim the museum's main building and wings.

Granite

Several varieties of granite were used in the construction of this building, because it is both durable and beautiful. This rock is 356 million years old, and was used to face the museum's main building.

Granite

Several varieties of granite were used in the construction of this building, because it is both durable and beautiful. This rock is 590 million years old, and was used to face and trim the museum's front steps and decorative accents.

Granite

Contains 0.8% water by weight. Water volume:79 milliliters.

Granite

Sebago Granite. You can tell by the mosaic of interlocking crystals--gray quartz, pink and white feldspar, black biotite, and silvery muscovite--that this rock is Plutonic.

Granite

Granite, Ordovician Period. This familiar city rock beautifies buildings and makes objects that take great wear and tear. That’s why many road and railroad beds, curbstones, cobblestones, monuments, statues, and tombstones are made of granite.

Granite

Pikes Peak Granite, 1.03 billion years old. Granite is an igneous rock--one that solidified from a hot, molten state. The crystals in this granite formed when molten rock cooled underground 1.1 billion years ago. They grew until they bumped into neighboring crystals. As the granite slowly cooled, the crystals grew fairly large.

Granite

Conway Granite, 181 million years old.

Granite

Several varieties of granite were used in the construction of this building. This rock, a variety of granite called unakite, is about 1 billion years old, and was used to trim the museum's front steps.

Granite

Pikes Peak Granite

Granite

The most common rock of continental crust, granite is generated mainly where one plate descends below another. Water released from the descending plate triggers a complex melting sequence that ultimately yields granite.

Granite

A bright green-and-orange granite, unakite, accents the Mall-side stairs of the Natural History Museum.