61 Facts About Rocks That You Might Not Have Known Before

A rock, according to geologists, is a natural composite material consisting of crystalline crystals of various mineral particles fused into a solid mass.

Rocks are formed inside the Earth and make up a significant portion of our nature. As rocks are so abundant, we take them for granted, yelling when we hit one with the claw hammer or using them to push tent pegs in during summer camping trips.

The rocks and minerals might have been created simultaneously or not. What is important is that they were all cemented together by natural mechanisms. Let’s check some facts about different types of rocks below and also understand how magma helps with the formation of different rock layers.

Fun Facts About Rocks

There are rocks everywhere around us. Wherever you look, there are rocks inside your home, in your yard, on your road, on a back road.

• Humans have used metals and minerals in rock since the beginning of civilization. Rocks are utilized to construct homes, polished aluminum ash, a clothes washer, computer games, planes, vehicles, and gems!
• Rocks aren't consistently strong. Sand and mud are considered rocks. Regardless of where you will be, you are always near rocks and minerals.
• The crust, mantle, and core, separated into exterior and interior core, are the three layers of the Earth. Also, every layer is distinct. The earth’s crust is in a constantly evolving state.
• Rocks are classified into three different types based on how they developed on the Earth's surface. Igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic are the three types.

Different Types Of Rocks

Here are some important facts related to the different types of rocks found on the Earth's surface.

• Igneous rock: Igneous rocks begin as lava melts rock deep inside the earth. The magma comes to the surface, where it would either erupt like a volcano or freeze and harden inside the earth's crust.
• Extrusive igneous rocks are the igneous rock that emerges out of a volcano and strikes the earth's surface. Intrusive igneous rock is an igneous rock that hardens before reaching the surface.
• Popular intrusive rocks include granite and diorite. They have a gritty texture with huge mineral grains, indicating that they cooled down below the ground for hundreds of millions of years, allowing large mineral crystals to develop.
• Some granite in Australia is thought to be even more than four billion years old, yet when rocks are that old, geological forces have transformed them so much that it's challenging to define them.
• Sedimentary rock: Sedimentary rock is made up of eroded particles of other rocks and plant and animal fossils. The fragments collect in low-lying regions like lakes, oceans, and deserts, where the weight of overlying elements compresses them back into rock.
• Clastic, natural, and synthetic sedimentary rocks are the three kinds of sedimentary rocks. Sandstone and other clastic sedimentary rocks are formed from clasts orbits of other rocks.
• Hard, biological elements such as plants, shells, and bones are compacted into the rock to produce natural sedimentary rocks, such as coal.
• The chemical method produces chemical sedimentary rock such as limestone, halite, and flint. A chemical precipitate is a chemical substance, such as calcium carbonate, salt, or silica, that develops when the solution in which it is dissolved evaporates, leaving the compound behind. Rocks like sandstone limestone and have many uses too.
• Metamorphic rock: During metamorphic rock formation, igneous, sedimentary, or other metamorphic rocks are altered by heat and pressure. Deep within the Earth, heat and pressure create this type of solid rock.
• Transformative rocks can be named foliated or non-foliated. Foliation occurs when minerals line up in layers under enormous pressure. An example of this transformation can be found in granite, an igneous rock. Granite is made up of platy and long minerals that are not aligned at first, but when enough pressure is applied, the minerals end up pointing in the same direction as they become flat sheets.
• Non-foliated rocks are formed in the same way as foliated rocks, but they do not include minerals that could line up under pressure and have a layered appearance.

Scientific Facts About Rocks

If you see a shooting star, it is a bit of space rock entering the atmosphere. Rocks from space sometimes land on Earth, but they land in the ocean most of the time. These rocks are called meteorites.

• Different minerals combine to form different kinds of rock. Granite, for example, contains three minerals: quartz, feldspar, and mica.
• The minerals that form crystals are either molten or dissolved in liquids, such as water. 85% of the Earth's rocks and minerals are made of crystals.
• The arrangement of atoms in it defines the hardness of a mineral. Graphite and diamonds are different forms of the same element, carbon, but their hardness differs due to their internal structures.
• The hardest mineral is diamond. Four atoms form a compact, rigid structure when they are strongly bonded.
• In the mineral called graphite, atoms are neatly arranged in layers that easily slide over one another. It is because of this that graphite has a weak structure.

Weird Facts About Rocks

A stone can start as one sort and can change ordinarily. Indeed, rocks are continually evolving which is also called the rock cycle. Nonetheless, the progressions occur at such a leisurely pace that they are hard to see.

• We have seen over that hotness and strain can change rocks, which then, at that point, separate by enduring and move by disintegration. It can require millennia for rocks to climate and disintegrate. This course of progress is known as the rock cycle. You can check online for a diagram showing the rock cycle.
• The heads at Mt. Rushmore are cut out of a molten stone called rock.
• The hotness from lightning striking ocean-side sand can liquefy the sand to shape a shiny stone called fulgurite.
• Liquefied stone is called magma when it is inside the earth. However, when magma runs out onto the outer layer of the Earth, our home planet, it is called lava.