Rock (geology)
In geology, a rock is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of one or more minerals or mineraloids. For example, the common rock, granite, is a combination of the quartz, feldspar and biotite minerals. The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock.
Rocks have been used by mankind through out history. From the Stone Age rocks have been used for tools. The minerals and metals we find in rocks have been essential to human civilization.
Three major groups of rocks are defined: igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic. The scientific study of rocks is called petrology, which is an essential component of geology.
Read more about Rock (geology): Rock Classification, Human Use
Famous quotes containing the word rock:
“So there he is at last. Man on the moon. The poor magnificent bungler! He can’t even get to the office without undergoing the agonies of the damned, but give him a little metal, a few chemicals, some wire and twenty or thirty billion dollars and, vroom! there he is, up on a rock a quarter of a million miles up in the sky.”
—Russell Baker (b. 1925)