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Glossary.
Abrasion
Wearing and grinding of a surface through friction. Erosion caused by the mechanical action of sea water on the rocks, cause and effect.
Cancellation obtained by scraping. Thanks to a mechanical movement, the surface abrasion of the manufactured slab originates honed marble and granite.
Abrasive
Used to remove and cancel by means of friction. Abrasive substances are very hard and are used to hone, finish-off and polish surfaces. Abrasives are classified in natural abrasives: (grinder, corundum, silica and quartz) and artificial abrasives: (silicon carbon or carborundum, aluminium oxide, powder glass, steel and cast iron grains).
For more invasive roughing-off processes, coarse grain abrasives are used while increasingly finer grain abrasives are used for finishing-off and polishing processes.
Basalt
Igneous effusive neovolcanic rock with mainly porphyric structure, black or dark grey in colour.
Batch
Production batch that indicates the quantity of manufactured marble, granite or stone produced at a certain time.
Block
Large compact mass of any material.
Bushhammering
Special process applied on manufactured slabs using a special tool called a bushhammer. This tool knurls the surface and is used to produce manufactured marble and granite by FMG.
Calcareous rock
Sedimentary rock mostly made up of calcite and a smaller percentage of dolomite, clay, bitumen. Its origin may be: chemical, organic and clastic.
Calcareous rock as a chemical deposit is obtained from soluble calcium bicarbonate that precipitates in spheroidal aggregates in the form of calcium carbonate. Organic calcareous rock is made up of animal and vegetable calcareous layers. Clastic calcareous rock comes from rocks that are defined as broken- stone, conglomerate, pudding-stone and is used as ornamental and building stone as well as to manufacture lime and cement. Metamorphic calcareous rock is known as marble, the saccharoid structure of which is obtained through the crystallisation of organic calcareous rock. Metamorphism produces a sheet erosion on rock and cancels any fossil traces.
Carborundum
Chemical compound, nearly as hard as diamonds, used as abrasive and in radio engineering as refractory material. Silicon carbon is obtained by heating a mix of carbon and quartz sand in an electric furnace at approximately 2000 °C
Clay
Sedimentary rock made up of aluminium hydrosilicate and other elements such as magnesium, iodine, potassium, calcium and iron. The main clay minerals are kaolin, chlorite, lithe and montmorillonite. Synonym of argil. Clay is a very pliable type of earth and is used to produce bricks and tiles. Clay is the outcome of broken up igneous rock (eruptive). Atmospheric agents such as rain, wind and gas have caused rock to decompose, transforming it into clay. The differences between various types of clay are due to various geologic processes that occur at the origin and where the deposits sediment. The main characteristic of clay is its pliability, in other words the capacity of taking on any shape and keeping it. Natural clay is classified according to its pliability and colour. Following firing, clay turns hard and becomes similar to stone. Clay impurities are due to its movement from the original place to another; along this journey, clay collects organic and inorganic material. Clay with fewer impurities is the whitest following firing. The less pliable clay is that fired at higher temperatures and is also the rarest type because it has never moved from the place where it formed. Clay is fired at at least 700 degrees approximately; this is the temperature required for the clay to turn hard and sturdy. Higher the temperature more compact, strong and vitrified is the clay. Clay is also used to produce manufactured slabs of FMG?
Covering
This is the material used to cover, protect, decorate and line a structure or a surface. Coverings are widely used in road constructions, in the building trade and in mining. A variety of coverings are used in the building trade.
Manufactured slabs are all technically suitable to guarantee a perfect covering.
Effusive
Specific term used to define the consolidation process of magma, on the surface or areas near it and of deriving rock. The characteristic structure of effusive rock is called porphyritic.
Eruptive
Produced from an eruption in relation to a volcanic eruption. After the magma has cooled in depth (intrusive) or on the surface (effusive) the eruptive magmatic or endogenous rocks are formed.
Factory
Is the factory of FMG in which modern and patented systems produce manufactured slabs.
Feldspar
A mix of monoclinic and triclinic aluminium silicate minerals that contains potassium, calcium, sodium and barium. The major types are the orthoclase and the isomorphic series of the sodium calcium plagioclases: albinite and anortite.
Flooring
Covering structure of a road or a room performed to obtain a flat and smooth surface, suitable for vehicle or foot traffic. In beaten earth it was the simplest flooring used in the old days. Venetian floorings were made up of fragments of coloured marble arranged randomly in a layer of cement. The Palladian floorings presently used in modern building combined with new materials such as linoleum and rubber are also of Venetian origin. Floorings can be classified into three categories: in elements, in sheets and monolithic.
Flooring in elements may be stoneware tiles, tiles of marble or honed stone, in marble chips, of porcelain glass or tesserae of porcelain stoneware. Sheet floorings are those made of rubber, plastic material or linoleum.
Manufactured slabs are all technically suitable to guarantee perfect flooring.
Gneiss
Holocrystalline metamorphic rock, the essential components of which are one or more feldspars and various other minerals. They are orthogneiss if they derive from eruptive rock and paragneiss when they derive from sedimentary rock and finally metagneiss when they originate from metamorphic rock.
Granite
Intrusive magmatic rock with high siliceous content featuring a holocrystalline structure, generally made up of orthoclase, quartz and mica.
Some granites may contain feldspar, sodium calcium, pyroxene, mica and amphibole and as accessory elements, magnetite, apatite, tourmaline and zircon.
Granite offers good resistance to atmospheric agents, is distributed in the earth’s crust and is used as building and covering material.
Holocrystalline
Characteristic structure of eruptive and intrusive rock where all the components are in their crystalline state.
Honing or smoothing
Finishing process of a surface, typical also in marble and granite slabs, with specular aspect and roughness within a few microns, obtained through the mechanical action of soft and very fine grain abrasive stones. This process frees the surface from unevenness and roughness. Filing, polishing.
Intrusive
The intrusive process involves phenomena that occur when the magma consolidates in various and more or less deeper zones of the lithosphere.
In the first stage, called orthomagnetic, mineralising agents reduce the viscosity of the magma forming crystals thanks to the gradual cooling of the molten mass. The other two phases, pegmatitic and pneumatolithic, are both characterised by a considerable action of the volatile agents that, by increasing the concentration, fluidify the residual mass, which moves and forms streams of differentiated rock with crystals of considerable dimensions.
Kaolin
Primary kaolin is clay found in the place where it formed without moving and without impurities. Primary kaolin remains white after firing and is the rarest and purest and is also the less pliable. Kaolin is used to produce chinaware. Kaolin is classified in secondary kaolin when it has moved from its place of formation and is therefore less pure and turns yellowish after firing but is slightly more pliable and less refractory than primary kaolin. Kaolin compacts at a temperature of 1480 degrees.
Lapping
Extra fine finishing process performed with special machinery (lapping machines) using very fine grain abrasives. This process is used to obtain manufactured slabs with reduced superficial roughness.
Liparite
Effusive neovolcanic rock corresponding to clearly acid granitic magma; it contains quartz and feldspar associated with accessory elements. They are classified and therefore distinguished according to their structure and richness in some elements.
Magma
In geology this terms indicates a mass of molten and incandescent rock originating from the earth’s interior. Magma presents a variable chemical composition, some elements on the other hand in the form of oxides are fixed. Magmas are defined as acid magmas or basic magmas depending on the percentage of silica. The same magma may give rise to two types of rock depending on whether they solidify within the lithosphere (intrusive rock) or outside it (effusive rock). Magmas may take the name of the intrusive rock that they originate: basaltic magma, granite magma.
Mixed magmas are magmas that have been contaminated.
Magmatic
Made up of magma.
Manufactured granite
Slabs of various sizes, produced in the factory exploiting advanced technologies, capable of offering a valid alternative to quarry marble. Manufactured slabs may look like quarry material but are technically superior thanks to their greater resistance to abrasion, to flexion, to frost, to chemicals, to stains and to water absorption.
Manufactured marble or man-made marble
Slabs of various sizes manufactured in the factory exploiting modern technologies to offer a valid alternative to quarry marble. Manufactured slabs look like quarry marble slabs, but are superior thanks to their technical characteristics, such as their resistance to abrasion, to flexion, to frost, to chemicals, to stains and to water absorption.
Manufactured porphyry
Manufactured stone produced in slabs of various sizes with high technical characteristics (see manufactured stone)
Manufactured quartzite
Highly performing slabs of various sizes, characterised by various grain sizes and full-body veins.
Manufactured serena stone
Slabs of various sizes of high technical performance, representing a valid alternative to quarry stone, characterised by their homogeneous cold grey colour.
Manufactured stone
Slabs of various sizes, produced in the factory exploiting advanced technologies, capable of offering a valid alternative to quarry marble. Manufactured slabs may look like quarry material but are technically superior thanks to their greater resistance to abrasion, to flexion, to frost, to chemicals, to stains and to water absorption
Marble
Name generally used to define compact calcareous rock and non-calcareous rock that is easy to process. Thanks to the metamorphic effect, these rocks have acquired a more or less fine crystalline structure. Marble is said to be mono-chrome if the colour is uniform and polychrome in the presence of veins and speckles. The different nature and various distribution of the accessory components such as quartz, graphite and pyrites gives the marble various colours, from red to yellow and from grey to green; the arrangement of these minerals around the veins creates ornamental patterns. Marble is used for floors, walls, ornamental applications but is not highly resistant to atmospheric agents. Marble has a compression strength that ranges between 900 and 1200 kg/m³ and a specific weight between 2400 and 2700 kg/m. Marble is generally mined in open air quarries with auger wire that enables the extraction of large blocks. These blocks are transported by sliding them over a bed of rubble to the saw mill where they are cut into slabs according to their colour, body and defects, using blades sprayed with water and quartz sand. They are honed by carborundum discs and are polished by means of abrasive powders that get finer and finer, with damp felt fitted on the turning disc.
Mineral
Homogenous body in which two identically directed portions have the same physical and chemical properties. They are classified in inorganic, organic, solid, liquid and gaseous. According to their origin, they are defined as primary (syngeneic or epigeneic) if they are found in the place where they formed and secondary if they have been transported, generally moved by water, from their place of origin to that where they are found.
From an industrial point of view, a mineral is said to be rich or poor according to the useful mineral percentage it contains. A raw mineral is any mineral taken from the ground.
Mineral as raw material
It is used in the production process of manufactured slabs.
Orthoclase
Its colour ranges from white-pink to grey; this trisilicate of potassium and monoclinic aluminium mineral belongs structurally to the tectosilicates. Its prismatic crystals are easily flaked in two directions at right angles and are found in geminated crystals that are characteristic in granites of Baveno and Montorfano.
Porphyric
The structure of eruptive effusive rock or even the one of some dyke rock is said to be porphyric. Characteristic is the presence of larger crystals (phenocrysts) immersed in a paste mainly made up of a thick weft of very small crystalline units, creating a mass that appears compact to the naked eye.
Porphyry
Eruptive rock that may be dyke rock or paleovolcanic effusive rock, made up of large crystals immersed in a vitreous paste or paste made up of micro-crystals. Depending on the nature of the rock you may have granite porphyry made up of quartz, orthoclase and mica; quartz porphyry and syenitic porphyry.
Quarry
Open air mine of rocks and minerals. Mining laws distinguish quarries and mines differently, according to the type of material mined. There are quarries of inert materials for cement-based conglomerates, of building materials (clay) or cement (limestone) of marble and ornamental stones and quarries for road constructions (chippings, crushed ballast and rubble)
Quartz
Made up of silica it is commonly found in nature. In its pure state it is colourless, see hyaline quartz or rock crystal, while the coloured varieties are the purple amethyst, yellow topaz, pink quartz or pinkish Bohemian ruby or smoky black quartz. Due to some inclusions, quartz may appear with particular reflections, in which case it is called cat’s eye or tiger’s eye or falcon’s eye. Main constituent of granite, of quartz porphyry, of gneiss or of trachyte.
Quartz is among the top quality raw materials used to produce manufactured slabs.
Quartzite
Metamorphic rock rich in quartz and poor in or lacking mica.
Raw material
A raw substance found in nature or a partially processed substance.
Raw materials
Used in the production cycle of manufactured slabs, sought after and sorted right around the world such as clay, kaolin, feldspar and quartz.
Rock
Name used to indicate minerals and aggregate materials obtained from these, that make up most of the earth’s crust. According to their chemical composition, they are split-up into: simple rock when they are made up of just one mineral and composite rock when they are made up of a combination of minerals. According to their origin they are classified as eruptive or igneous, sedimentary and metamorphic.
Eruptive rock derives from the consolidation of magmas and sedimentary rock derives from chemical, clastic, pyroclastic and organic deposits. Metamorphic rock originates from the transformation of the previous types.
Top quality raw materials are used also to produce the manufactured slabs, just like those extracted from quarry rock.
Schistosity
Characteristic of some metamorphic rocks that split according to parallel or almost parallel layers due to the constant action of pressures that always act in the same direction.
Sedimentary
Formed by sedimentation, composed of sediments.
The sedimentary process involves groups of processes that lead to the deposition of weathered rock debris. This process is said to be mechanical if the material is deposited by the force of the wind, sea and ice or by the force of continental water. The process is said to be chemical if the material is deposited following the evaporation of solvent or following the change in environmental conditions or following chemical reactions between dissolved chemical components. The organogenic nature of the sedimentary process is due to the accumulation of organic residues.
Serena stone
In Tuscany this is the name given to a type of grey-light blue stone, which can be easily processed.
Silica
It exists in various crystalline (quartz, tridimite, crystobalite) criptocrystalline and amorphous forms. Chemical compound that is most abundant one in the earth’s crust. Its most widespread crystalline form in nature is quartz, which is used to produce cement, glass, refractory materials and some abrasives.
Top quality silica is also used to produce manufactured slabs.
Siliceous
Made up of silica.
Speckling
Presence on the same solid colour base of a group of multi-colour marks. Speckling is the point where these marks appear.
Stone
Term used to define some types of compact rocks used above all as building material.
Trachyte
Neovolcanic, effusive, magmatic rock formed from syenitic magma. Trachyte is made up of feldspar, sanidine and plagioclase. Trachyte is clear, yellowish grey, reddy in colour and found in abundance in the Euganean hills and in the Cimini mountains. Some types of trachyte have a vacuolar structure and are rough to the touch, others have a predominant vitreous paste; for this reason they are called vitrophiric, obsidian.
Vein
Line or mark of different colour compared to the base; in marble this is called veining.
Veined
A material presenting veins, lines of different colour.
Veining
Present on some marble and wooden surfaces: natural or artificial lines of different colour compared to the base
Veining in manufactured marble
Marks of different colour that cross right through the manufactured slabs.
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Manufactured slabs
Manufactured marble, travertine, granite and other stones for very attractive slabs of outstanding technical performance. |
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Decorative pieces
Pliability, versatility and workability to satisfy design creativity of architecture. The decorative pieces of FMG Fabbrica Marmi e Graniti offer colours, design and geometrical matches that enable original aesthetic solutions. |
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