Glossary of Terms

Absorption:
The process by which a liquid is taken into (soaked up by) another substance and held there.

Accelerator:
A material used to speed the setting of mortar, epoxy, and polyester resins.

Adhered:
A term used for veneer secured and supported through adhesion to an approved bonding material applied over an approved backing.

Anchor:
Device for securing stone to a structure.

Argillite:
A compact metamorphic rock composed mainly of clay, aluminum silicate minerals. Similar to slate in
appearance and splitting properties, but usually much harder.

Arkosic Sandstone:
A sandstone where much feldspar is present, ranging from un-assorted products of granular disintegration of granite to partly sorted river-laid or even marine deposits.

Arris:
It is either a natural or applied line on the surface of the stone from which all leveling and plumbing is measured.

Ashlar:
A thin stone shaped into squares or rectangles. For facing a wall of rubble or brick.

Backing:
The part of a veneer wall behind the exterior facing which is designed to support load.

Basalt:
A dark gray to black polygonal shaped, dense to fine grained igneous rock, that is relatively high iron and magnesia minerals and relatively low in silica.

Base:
The bottom course of a stone wall, or the vertical first member above grade of a finished floor.

Bed:
The place or material in which stone, block or brick is laid. Or the depth of the stone against the face.

Bleed:
Staining action caused by corrosive metals, oil-based putties, mastics, caulking or sealing compounds.

Bluestone:
A hard fine-grained feldspathic and micaceous sandstone of greenish-brown to bluish gray.

Broken:
Irregular shaped pieces of flagstone, traditionally palletized on edge.

Calcite:
Is a carbonate mineral and the most stable polymorph of calcium carbonate. CaCO3.

Calcite Streaks:
A white or milky like streak in a stone. This happens when a crack or split in the stone occurs, and has been re-cemented by a deposit of calcite. Is structurally sound.

Cement:
A dry finely ground powder mixture of lime, clay and gypsum. When mixed with water causes a chemical reaction to occurs that hardens the mixture. Portland Cement Type 1 is the most common.

Cladding:
The lightweight outer skin of a building that does not carry any weight nor support the building, but which protects it from the elements.

Cleavage:
The ability of a stone to break along natural surfaces

Cobblestone:
A naturally rounded stone used primarily for paving.

Coping:
A flat stone used as a cap on walls, or around the perimeter of patios and pool decks.

Curbing:
Blocks of stone bordering streets, walks, etc

Cut Stone:
All stone that has been cut or machined to a predetermined size or shape.

Cutting Stock:
Any material that sole purpose is to be fabricated into another product.

Dimensional Stone:
Stone, cut and shaped to a pre-specified size and shape.

Dowel:
A metal pin used in aligning and strengthening joints.

Dressed or Hand Dressed:
The process of cutting out rough chunks, by hand to create a square or rectangular shape.

Drip:
A recessed cut under a sill or projecting stone to throw off water.

Dry Wall / Dry Stack:
Stone walls that are constructed by stacking one stone upon another without the use of mortar.

Efflorescence:
When water moving through a wall or other structure, or water being driven out as a result of the heat of hydration as cement stone is being formed, brings salts to the surface that are not commonly bound as part of the cement stone. As the water evaporates, it leaves the salt behind, which forms a white, fluffy deposit, that can normally be brushed off. The resulting white deposits are referred to as "efflorescence". Since primary efflorescence brings out salts that are not ordinarily part of the cement stone, it is not a structural, but, rather, an aesthetic concern.

Face:
The exposed portion of a stone.

Feldspathic Sandstone:
Sandstone rich in feldspar; Intermediate in composition between Arkosic sandstone and quartz
sandstone, made up of 10-25% feldspar and less than 20% matrix material.

Flagstone:
A stone so evenly stratified that it can be split into uniform thicknesses. Not a type of stone but a cut of stone.

Gauge:
The process of grinding a pieces of material to a uniform thickness.

Granite:
A common and widely occurring type of intrusive, felsic, igneous rock. Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as porphyry. Granites can be pink to dark gray or even black, depending on their chemistry and mineralogy.

Head:
The end of a stone that has been tooled to match the face.

Hearth:
A brick or stone-lined fireplace or oven used for cooking and/or heating. In fireplace design, the hearth is often considered the visible elements of the fireplace, with emphasis upon the floor level extension of masonry associated with the fireplace mantel.

Igneous Rock:

One of the three main classifications of rock. Formed by solidification of cooled magma (molten rock), with or without crystallization, either below the surface as intrusive (plutonic) rocks or on the surface as extrusive (volcanic) rocks. Their have been over 700 types of igneous rock identified.

Irregular:
Pieces of flagstone that are a non-dimensional shape.

Joint:
The space between stones.

Jumper:
In veneer patterns, a piece of stone of higher rise than adjacent stones.

Lava:
A molten rock expelled by a volcano during an eruption. Although lava is quite viscous, with about 100,000 times the viscosity of water, it can flow great distances before cooling and solidifying, When it has stopped moving, lava solidifies to form igneous rock.

Limestone:
is a sedimentary rock composed largely of the mineral calcite (calcium carbonate).

Marble:
A non-foliated metamorphic rock resulting from the metamorphism of limestone, composed mostly of calcite (a crystalline form of calcium carbonate).

Metamorphic Rock:
One of the three main classifications of rock. The result of the transformation of a pre-existing rock type, the protolith , in a process called metamorphism, which means "change in form". The protolith is subjected to heat (greater than 150 degrees Celsius) and extreme pressure causing profound physical and/or chemical change. The protolith may be sedimentary rock, igneous rock or another older metamorphic rock. Metamorphic rocks make up a large part of the Earth's crust and are classified by texture and by chemical and mineral assemblage (metamorphic facies). They may be formed simply by being deep beneath the Earth's surface, subjected to high temperatures and the great pressure of the rock layers above. They can be formed by tectonic processes such as continental collisions which cause horizontal pressure, friction and distortion. They are also formed when rock is heated up by the intrusion of hot molten rock called magma from the Earth's interior.

Mortar:
A material used in masonry to bind construction blocks together and fill the gaps between them.

Natural Bed:
The setting of the stone on the same plane as it was formed in the ground.

Natural Cleft:
When flagstone is split along a natural seam, the remaining uneven surface is referred to as Natural Cleft.

Obsidian:
A type of naturally occurring glass formed as an extrusive igneous rock.

Palletized:
A system of stacking stone either vertically or horizontal on wooden pallets.

Patio:
In the L&W Stone lexicon it refers to smaller pieces of irregular flagstone palletized flat. Sometimes called steppers, colonial or garden path.

Quartzite:
A hard, metamorphic rock which was originally sandstone. The sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tectonic compression within orogenic belts. Pure quartzite is usually white to grey. Quartzite's often occur in various shades of pink and red due to varying amounts of iron oxide. Other colors are due to impurities of minor amounts of other minerals.

Quoins:
Stones at the external corner or edge of a wall emphasized by size, projection or by a different finish.

Rubble:
A broken stone, of irregular size and shape.

Sandstone:
A sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-size mineral or rock grains. Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust. Like sand, sandstone may be any color, but the most common colors are tan, brown, yellow, red, gray and white. Sandstones are clastic in origin (as opposed to organic , like chalk and coal, or chemical, like gypsum and jasper). They are formed from cemented grains that may either be fragments of a pre-existing rock or be mono-minerallic crystals. The cements binding these grains together are typically calcite, clays and silica. Grain sizes in sands are in the range of 0.1 mm to 2 mm (clays and rocks with smaller grain sizes including siltstones and shale's are typically called argillaceous sediments; rocks with larger grain sizes including breccias and conglomerates are termed rudaceous sediments).

Sedimentary Rock:
One of the three main classifications of rock. Rock formed from sediments cover 75 - 80% of the Earth's land area, and includes common types such as Chalk, Limestone, Dolomite, Sandstone Conglomerate & Shale. Sedimentary rocks are formed because of the overburden pressure as particles of sediment are deposited out of air, ice, wind, gravity, or water flows carrying the particles in suspension. As sediment deposition builds up, the overburden (or 'lithostatic') pressure squeezes the sediment into layered solids in a process known as lithification ('rock formation') and the original connate fluids are expelled. The term diagenesis is used to describe all the chemical, physical, and biological changes, including cementation, undergone by a sediment after its initial deposition and during and after its lithification, exclusive of surface weathering.

Sawn edge:
A clean cut edge generally achieved by cutting with a saw.

Schist:
Schist's form a group of medium-grade metamorphic rocks, chiefly notable for the preponderance of lamellar minerals such as micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite, and others. Quartz often occurs in drawn-out grains to such an extent that a particular form called quartz schist is produced. By definition, schist contains more than 50% platy and elongated minerals, often finely interleaved with quartz and feldspar. The individual mineral grains in schist, drawn out into flaky scales by heat and pressure, can be seen by the naked eye. Schist is characteristically foliated, meaning the individual mineral grains split off easily into flakes or slabs.

Snapped Edge:
A natural breaking of a stone either by hand or machine. The break should be at right angles to the top and bottom surfaces.

Strata:
A layer of rock or soil with internally consistent characteristics that distinguishes it from contiguous layers. Each layer is generally one of a number of parallel layers that lie one upon another, laid down by natural forces. They may extend over hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of the Earth's surface. Strata are typically seen as bands of different colored or differently structured material exposed in cliffs, road cuts, quarries, and river banks. Individual bands may vary in thickness from a few millimeters to a kilometer or more. Each band represents a specific mode of deposition — river silt, beach sand, coal swamp, sand dune, lava bed, etc.

Template:
A pattern for repetitive marking or for fabrication.

Tolerance:
Dimensional allowances in size and thickness due to stone being a product of nature and is not found in exact measurements.