Making a statue – all except mudstone and coal
(too soft) – it would be difficult to make a statue
from some because they are so hard, eg. granite, metaquartzite
Building a dam – all except mudstone and coal
(too soft), conglomerate (too variable), slate (too easily
broken in one direction)
Making a fireplace – anything that
is attractive – except mudstone and coal (too soft - and coal would burn)
Solid foundations – all of them
– but the tougher the rock, the better the foundations
Which of the rocks would be best for:
Storing water within it – sandstone,
limestone, conglomerate
Storing oil or gas within it –
sandstone, limestone, conglomerate
Showing that sedimentary rocks are made
of lots of fragments – the fragments are most clear
in coarser-grained rocks, conglomerate, sandstone, limestone
Showing that igneous rocks have interlocking
crystals – the crystals are clearest in the coarsest
rocks, granite, gabbro and peridotite
Showing that metamorphic rocks often have
aligned minerals – slate, schist, gneiss
Some rocks contain traces of past life
– fossiliferous limestone
Which rocks (2 or more) would best show:
Sedimentary rocks ranging from coarse
to fine – conglomerate to sandstone to mudstone
The difference between igneous rocks
that formed by slow cooling and fast-cooled igneous rocks
– coarse rocks (slow cooling – granite, gabbro, peridotite)
through medium grained rocks (microgranite) to fine-grained
rocks (basalt, andesite, rhyolite)
Metamorphic rocks that often don’t
have aligned minerals – marble or quartzite. This
is either because the rock was formed by thermal metamorphism,
when there was little pressure to cause mineral alignment,
or because the minerals don’t easily show alignment
– as the calcite in many marbles and the quartz
in many metaquartzites.
The metamorphic rocks that show a sequence
of increasing metamorphism from an initial mudstone sedimentary
rock – mudstone to slate to schist to gneiss.