Is Limestone Or Marble Harder

Both limestone and marble tend to react with acidic substances by forming a gray or black crust of gypsum crystals.

Is limestone or marble harder.

Marble is often used as a building material and in sculptures. Rocks don t technically have any concrete mohs hardness as they are mixtures of minerals. Limestone is softer than marble but harder than chalk. Marble and limestone lie at the opposite end of the hardness scale from granite.

Limestone is a soft easily workable rock that is comprised of at least 50 calcite aragonite and or dolomite. Marble is relatively hard but not as hard as granite. Even though it is harder than limestone it is not as hard as granite. This doesn t mean that you can t use marble for kitchen countertops but is a factor to consider when selecting your natural stone.

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. Fired clay tends to be quite hard and depending on the formula might be harder than limestone. Marble is a very hard stone.

From greek statues to roman baths it has been used for centuries in just about every possible interior and exterior application. It goes granite marble limestone and it comes down to simple minerals. 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. It features many colors due to the mineral impurities in limestone but those used in sculptures are typically white.

3 limestone is a sedimentary rock while marble is a metamorphic rock. 5 limestone is more porous than marble while marble is harder than limestone. Most people are familiar with marble. Minerals do have defined hardnesses though.

4 heat and pressure causes the formation of marble while they are not necessary for the formation of limestone. This may be important for areas like kitchen countertops where there is high traffic. Limestone on the other hand is basically just a huge pile of non interlocked but cemented calcite caco3 which is the definition of a mohs 3. Marble basically classifies into four groups which include.

For instance quartzite is a harder material than marble making it less prone to wear regarding staining and scratching. Marble is slightly denser and harder than limestone but both stones are relatively soft which makes them easy to work with.