artificial stones

I doubt very much that we could afford the time and energy needed to emulate the metamorphic process. Simply heating calcium carbonate CaCO3 is most likely going to give you calcium oxide or lime.

Hello!

Although it seems impossible and meaningless to melt lime, basalt is already being melted and used in place of conventional ceramic plates .For tis purpose basalt is melted ,poured into the sand molds and heat treated.There are some manufacturers in Germany,Bulgaria and some Eastern Europe Countries.

Regards,

Taner Mersin

?! "...it seems impossible and meaningless to melt lime"...?!

I'm not a chemist, but even I remember from school-days:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soda-lime_glass

Or ... were you referring-to "without any other constituents added"...?

Lets's look at the question

"if there were any experiments to melt limestone inorder to get marble"

Well, as I stated above, I am no chemist ... but, simply reading a few lines here;

http://www.mineralszone.com/stones/marble.html

adds to the crux of my original response. ... The opening line of Post#2 says, verbatim:

"Although it seems impossible and meaningless to melt lime...". ... And, although I suspect that it might be difficult to duplicate the conditions of pressure under the earths crust (for marble's sake), we all know that it can certainly be done, and clearly the "melting" is done as a matter of routine.

So ... if it seems that I was attempting to insult, mock, or otherwise injure the previous poster, such was not the case at all. I was simply "jumping-in", trying to preclude any subsequent contributors from tossing-in additional "misdirection", if I may get away with saying that.

Best Regards ~

Metamorphic would not be limestone anymore, but rather marble. Marble isn't formed by igneous process where it is melted, but rather by very high pressure and some heat that allows plastic deformation and changes in the structure. As such heating to the point of melting is not necessary, but high pressures and just enough heat to allow plastic deformation. Since this ocurs very slowly in nature, crystalline structures are allowed to deform, adjust and grow slowly. Igneous extrusive rocks are microcrystalline, since they form rapidly under atmospheric conditions, and simply heating them at atmospheric pressures is similar to the process of their formation anyways.

Hello "Guest". (Why not register so we may call each other by name?)

If you want to literally turn limestone into marble, e.g., duplicate the natural process, I agree with Leanhards- I do not think this is feasible. But if what you mean is you want to produce a simulated marble from limestone, the most promising technique would probably be the one widely used by manufacturers of sinks, bathtubs and shower enclosures: mix finely ground stone powder with epoxy, polyester, or acrylic. Of course, marble dust would probably work best.

Bill Morrow

Looks like a good fresh field to study, remember, they poo-pooed those trying to make synthetic diamonds and now many types if stones are produced regularly and at a profit!

I say go for it!

That was and still is a DeBeers marketing campaign to protect their hold on the market. The Soviets were strongly favorable to production of high quality synthetic diamonds. Diamonds are purely a shiny bauble for women to demonstrate their staus amongst their peers. Therefore, much like fashion it's value to women far exceeds its true worth. This over-inflated value for the naturally occurring gems, drives even the shigh quality ynthetic ones cost up. Rock on the other hand is cheap, even marble, so you would have to be pretty inexpensive in manufacturing to sell synthetic rock, unless you could somehow convince the fashion industry it was the new trend, maybe the new Jimmy Choo synthetic rock.

Hi,

there have been very early experiments to simulate the plastic behaviour of carbonates as limestone (and magnesite, dolomite) which was deformed by folding of continental plates.

What resulted:

It is not at all suitable to melt these materials as the resulting CO2-pressure is much too high.

But at high pressures (100 to 1000bar) and only slightly elevated temperature (200 to 400°C) these materials can be reshaped by plastic deformation.

Equipment that is suited for extruding aluminum profiles can be used to do similar extruding with limestone. (Somewhat slower I estimate).

Recrystallisation to get marble may take some (considerable) time, any university department on geology or mineralogy should know.

I never heard about similar experiments with basalt. But there is a company in Germany: Kalenborn Schmelzbasalt, they melt the basalt and cast into suitable shapes. Seems to be difficult to control shrinkage and cracking. Tiles made from this recast basalt are extremely abrasion resistant and used for example for inner tiling of tubes used for transportation of wheat and other cereals that abrade metallic tubes at a rate of some millimeters per day.

In technical applications nowadays it is often much better to use alumina - much better in hardness and abrasion resistance, needs a tiny little bit of humidity to work without seizing.

RHABE