Is Limestone Or Marble Harder

Marble is slightly denser and harder than limestone but both stones are relatively soft which makes them easy to work with.

Is limestone or marble harder.

Marble is often used as a building material and in sculptures. This doesn t mean that you can t use marble for kitchen countertops but is a factor to consider when selecting your natural stone. This may be important for areas like kitchen countertops where there is high traffic. Limestone is softer than marble but harder than chalk.

Marble is a very hard stone. It features many colors due to the mineral impurities in limestone but those used in sculptures are typically white. Limestone is a soft easily workable rock that is comprised of at least 50 calcite aragonite and or dolomite. Most people are familiar with marble.

Marble and limestone lie at the opposite end of the hardness scale from granite. 4 heat and pressure causes the formation of marble while they are not necessary for the formation of limestone. Marble basically classifies into four groups which include. Groups a b c and d.

Fired clay tends to be quite hard and depending on the formula might be harder than limestone. From greek statues to roman baths it has been used for centuries in just about every possible interior and exterior application. Granites have large amounts of quartz sio2 and other hard silicate materials quartz 7 mohs. 5 limestone is more porous than marble while marble is harder than limestone.

It goes granite marble limestone and it comes down to simple minerals. Even though it is harder than limestone it is not as hard as granite. Both limestone and marble tend to react with acidic substances by forming a gray or black crust of gypsum crystals. Right away we have a hard decision to make.

We can see from this government report that both limestone and marble are affected by the problem of acid rain. Limestone generally ranks at around a 3 on the scale while marble falls between 3 and 4. 3 limestone is a sedimentary rock while marble is a metamorphic rock. While marble is slightly harder and denser than limestone both rate very low on the mohs scale a rating used to measure the hardness of stones.

Minerals do have defined hardnesses though. Marble is relatively hard but not as hard as granite.