# Is it possible to create artificial rock types?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [September 17, 2015, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571 "2015-09-17T17:04:15Z")
**Posts on this page:** 12
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@carlowplayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carlowplayer)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2015, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/1 "2015-09-17T17:04:15Z")
companies like gemesis can create artificial diamonds so would it possible to artificially recreate the processes that lead to sedimentary,metamorphoric and igneous rocks such as sandstone,odsidian and marble?In other words can we create individual igneous,sedimentary and metamorphic rocks in a lab/kiln/factory that we desired?
> **[List of rock types](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rock_types)**
>
> The following is a list of rock types recognized by geologists. There is no agreed number of specific types of rocks. Any unique combination of chemical composition, mineralogy, grain size, texture, or other distinguishing characteristics can describe a rock type. Additionally, different classification systems exist for each major type of rock. There are three major types of rock: igneous rock, metamorphic rock, and sedimentary rock.
> The following are terms for rocks that are not petrographical...
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2015, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/2 "2015-09-17T17:31:33Z")
Cement and concrete are, in effect, artificial rock, as are bricks and most other ceramics.
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### Author:  [@Anaglyph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaglyph)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/3 "2015-09-17T17:47:56Z")
Glass is artificial Obsidian
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### Author:  [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)
#### Post date: [September 17, 2015, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/4 "2015-09-17T17:56:29Z")
The field of study that involves making artificial rocks in a lab is called [experimental petrology.](http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/equilibria/experimentalpetrology.html)
They can usually broadly simulate the pressure and temperature conditions deep in the earth, but the limitation is that most intrusive igneous and metamorphic processes take hundreds of thousands to millions of years to progress completely. So the artificial rocks created experimentally are always going to be something of an approximation rather than a dead-ringer for something that came out of the earth. It’s also pretty expensive and usually has very small sample sizes, so it’s not as if they’re going to be making synthetic granite or marble on an industrial scale anytime soon.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2015, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/5 "2015-09-18T10:29:27Z")
Many igneous rocks and some metamorphic ones, yes, we can, it involves melting mixes of the right minerals and cooling them under specific pressures and vapour conditions.This is done with melting existing rocks (e.g. how [Bowen’s reaction series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowen%27s_reaction_series) and p[hase diagrams](http://csmres.jmu.edu/geollab/Fichter/IgnRx/SolidSol.html) were initially worked out) or synthetic mixes. The apparatus is [actually](http://expet.gps.caltech.edu/) [fairly simple](http://web.mit.edu/petrolab/www/facilities.shtml).
But like **GreasyJack** said, you’ll only get small sample sizes and particular temperature ranges. Nobody’s making kitchen countertops with those rigs, and lots of rocks can’t be duplicated that way. Sedimentary rocks, for instance, are right out.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2015, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/6 "2015-09-18T11:16:53Z")
> [@Anaglyph](#):
>
> Glass is artificial Obsidian
This isn’t really true. Obsidian is _a_ glass, true enough, but glass as we colloquially mean it doesn’t have anything like the composition of obsidian - obsidian is an Fe-Mg silicate glass, whereas ‘glass’-glass is most often a Ca/Na silicate glass, a pure quartz glass, or the speciality types like borosilicates, lead crystal, fibreglass and fibre-optic glass.
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### Author:  [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2015, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/7 "2015-09-18T11:38:27Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#):
>
> The field of study that involves making artificial rocks in a lab is called [experimental petrology.](http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/equilibria/experimentalpetrology.html)
>
> They can usually broadly simulate the pressure and temperature conditions deep in the earth, but the limitation is that most intrusive igneous and metamorphic processes take hundreds of thousands to millions of years to progress completely.
But not always millions of years!
I was on holiday this summer and by chance happened to be staying a few hundred meters away from the site of the [Kofels Landslide](http://historyofgeology.fieldofscience.com/2011/04/landslide-of-kofels-geology-between.html). Utterly fascinating and not a little bit scary. This was a landslip some 8,700 years ago that saw 3-4 cubic kilometres of mountainside slip down and across a glacial valley.
The heat generated during the event created a new metamorphic rock, Frictionite, in matter of minutes. I never knew such a thing was possible and it rather boggles the mind to consider the temperature, pressure and forces at work.
For those interested you can get a decent appreciation of this from looking at the [google map](https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@47.1162267,10.944958,13z/data=!5m1!1e4?hl=en). It is fairly obvious to see and the slip occurred from the mountain ridge immediately west of Kofels (it used to be several hundred meters higher) and travelled across to Neiderthai on the eastern side of the valley (where we were staying).
The landslide blocked the valleys south and east and created huge lakes until the rivers found new courses through the softer debris and new frictionite so cutting their present v-shaped valleys . If you have any interest in geology and are in the area I’d highly recommend taking a look.
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### Author:  [@davida03801](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davida03801)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2015, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/8 "2015-09-18T12:42:41Z")
been making artificial rock for a couple thousand years now. They call it concrete.
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### Author:  [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)
#### Post date: [September 18, 2015, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/9 "2015-09-18T13:50:55Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#):
>
> The field of study that involves making artificial rocks in a lab is called [experimental petrology.](http://serc.carleton.edu/research_education/equilibria/experimentalpetrology.html)
>
> They can usually broadly simulate the pressure and temperature conditions deep in the earth, but the limitation is that most intrusive igneous and metamorphic processes take hundreds of thousands to millions of years to progress completely. So the artificial rocks created experimentally are always going to be something of an approximation rather than a dead-ringer for something that came out of the earth. It’s also pretty expensive and usually has very small sample sizes, so it’s not as if they’re going to be making synthetic granite or marble on an industrial scale anytime soon.
Granite would be unfeasible; if I’m not mistaken the crystals in it form through a very, very _slooooow_ cooling period.
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### Author:  [@ASGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASGuy)
#### Post date: [September 19, 2015, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/10 "2015-09-19T13:12:30Z")
I’m not sure this fits into the “new kind of rock” category but don’t forget our atomic bomb creation, Trinitite. You make a lot but the laboratory apparatus gets destroyed every time you do it. (I think Trinitie probably falls more into the glass category but in any case, the stuff was given its own name.)
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### Author:  [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2015, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/11 "2015-09-20T12:49:32Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> This isn’t really true. Obsidian is _a_ glass, true enough, but glass as we colloquially mean it doesn’t have anything like the composition of obsidian - obsidian is an Fe-Mg silicate glass, whereas ‘glass’-glass is most often a Ca/Na silicate glass, a pure quartz glass, or the speciality types like borosilicates, lead crystal, fibreglass and fibre-optic glass.
Thats just nit picking. It was left to the reader to throw some Fe and Mg into artificial glass and make it artificial Obsidian…
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [September 20, 2015, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-possible-to-create-artificial-rock-types/731571/12 "2015-09-20T16:50:19Z")
> [@Isilder](#):
>
> Thats just nit picking.
Is this _General Questions_? Why, I do believe it is.