In January 2013 Volcanoclast's blog asked readers for nice examples of polished rocks in tabletops, and similar decorative settings. I'm a year too late to win any prizes, but this reminded me of some nice rocks I saw in 2011, flying to Mozambique to look at tantalum pegmatites.
First, Dubai. As you might imagine, a very classy airport indeed. The polished stone floors include a lot of beautiful blue sodalite syenite:
I'm not quite sure where this nice rock comes from: there seem to be quite a lot of commercial sources e.g. Zambia, the Andes, Namibia, Brazil and other places. The abundance of green aegirine(?) in the Dubai floors seems rather like the Azul Bahia rock from the Proterozoic Southern Bahia Province, in Brazil.
Unlike many sodalite syenites, the Dubai floor rock shows very nice preservation of original igneous textures. While much blue sodalite in syenites is probably the result of post-magmatic replacement, it can also form as a primary magmatic product.
First, Dubai. As you might imagine, a very classy airport indeed. The polished stone floors include a lot of beautiful blue sodalite syenite:
I'm not quite sure where this nice rock comes from: there seem to be quite a lot of commercial sources e.g. Zambia, the Andes, Namibia, Brazil and other places. The abundance of green aegirine(?) in the Dubai floors seems rather like the Azul Bahia rock from the Proterozoic Southern Bahia Province, in Brazil.
Unlike many sodalite syenites, the Dubai floor rock shows very nice preservation of original igneous textures. While much blue sodalite in syenites is probably the result of post-magmatic replacement, it can also form as a primary magmatic product.
Might this be magmatic sodalite in these Dubai floor slabs?
And so on to Oliver Tambo airport, Johannesburg. Again, a lot of very nice polished natural stone used in the airport. I was particularly impressed by these sabs, showing lovely pegmatitic veins and pods in granite:
Some of the feldspars in these pegmatites even showed traces of moonstone "schiller" effect .The host granite is heterogeneous, and almost banded, maybe suggesting a rather dynamic environment, but the late pegmatite pods have clearly crystallized in situ in very still conditions. Can anybody suggest the source of these beautiful rocks?
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