Where do granite countertops come from?
The ground, of course. Sorry, just kidding.
So Where Does Granite Come From?
Granite forms when magma rises up from Earth’s molten mantle. The magma pools up in pockets throughout the layers of the Earth’s crust and eventually forms igneous rock, which is any rock formed by magma.
There are 2 forms of igneous rocks:
1) Extrusive igneous rocks form when magma is forced out from underground by, say, a volcanic eruption. The magma cools too quickly to form crystals, and the resulting rocks are sometimes smooth like basalt and obsidian.
2) Intrusive igneous rocks form when the magma gets siphoned off and isolated in an underground pocket and therefore cools slowly over thousands of years! This allows for large crystals to form like in, you guessed it, granite.
Here’s an idea of how that works: Geology rocks!
Igneous rocks make up the vast majority of Earth’s crust and are therefore the most common rock on the planet. It’s no wonder that granite is found on every continent.
But Where Does Most Granite Come From?
Most granite for countertops is quarried, or mined, from only some parts of the world including Brasil, India and Africa. Take a look: Here at Granite Liquidators we import the large majority of our granite from Brasil and India. This is subject to change, though, because quarries often shutdown or reach a point when it is environmentally responsible to quit mining them.
Some of our most beautiful and exotic slabs, like Sedna Magma, come from Vitoria, Brasil.
Now every time you step foot in your kitchen you can imagine the sunlit mountains of coastal Brazil from which your countertops came.
But How Do They Get The Granite Out Of The Mountain?
Granite extraction and processing is an impressive feat of modern engineering best explained by this great video (Hollywood would be proud of some of the explosions in it): You can see that a lot of work goes into extracting granite slabs from the Earth–but the end result is worth it. Being rock geeks here at Granite Liquidators, we are awestruck thinking about where granite comes from and how it reaches your countertops.
That’s why we’ve worked so hard to set up a network that gets the granite from the humid coasts of Brazil to the dry mountain air of Colorado.
We hope you’ve enjoyed learning a bit more about where your granite countertops come from. If you want to learn more about granite countertops in Denver, Colorado then check out our guide: