About Basalt Stone
Basalt is a dark, relatively dense volcanic rock (lava) that erupts from fissures in the Earth’s crust. The lava erupts both on land and on the sea floor with the latter often forming “pillow lava” due to its rapid cooling by sea water. Basalt makes up most of the world's oceanic crust, where it erupts along mid-oceanic ridges and slowly expands laterally due to sea floor speading (plate tectonics) away from the ridge. On land it sometimes accumulates as flood basalt, for example the Drakensberg lavas in Lesotho, the Columbia River basalts in the United States and the Deccan Traps in India, which are up to 12 km thick. Compared to the familiar granite of the continents, basalt ("ba-SALT") is darker, denser and finer-grained.
The dark colour of basalt is due to the presence of plagioclase and less abundant pyroxene, magnetite and ilmenite as well as an absence of quartz (a mineral characteristic of granite). The high density is a result of the presence of minerals enriched in magnesium and iron namely pyroxene, olivine, magnetite and ilmenite. Basalt is classified as a mafic rock based upon its dark colour and iron- and magnesium-bearing minerals.
No plagioclase is aluminium-bearing The very fine texture of basalt is a result of rapid cooling either on land or in the sea. Some basalts are porphyritic containing larger crystals such as olivine and plagioclase in a very fine-grained matrix. Vesicular basalts contain voids caused by the presence of bubbles in the lava and these become amygdaloidal when coarse minerals, for example zeolite, crystallize in these voids. In some areas, columnar jointing is present in the solidified basalt leading to the formation of hexagonal columns such as the Giant’s Causeway, Northern Ireland.
Application:
Basalt is suitable for pavers and tiles in high traffic application.
Cut available:
- Thickness tolerance +/- 2 mm
- Measurement: Any with max cutting 400 mm x 600 mm
Finishing:
- Honed
- Polish
- Rock/Natural Face
- Line Chiseled
- Flamed
Underwritten by: Dr. Douglas Cole | Geologist at Council for Geoscience SA
Initial Design by Ricardo Kinshella | Website by The D3signs Studio