Granite

Granite is a rock with patterns that look like black sesame scattered on a white background. The black spots and white background are all made of minerals. Rocks showing such a pattern are created from magma that was slowly cooled and solidified at a depth of several kilometers below ground. Granite is commonly used as a stone for building. Makabe in Sakuragawa City and Inada in Kasama City north of Mt. Tsukuba are major granite producing centers in the Kanto region. In a final stage of solidification, the granite magma occasionally produces big, beautiful crystals of quartz, feldspar and topaz. This is called pegmatite. Pegmatite attracts elements that are not easily incorporated into the common granite.