the.com/limestone
the patient corpse-press of a billion sea creatures, now your kitchen countertop
means A soft sedimentary rock made mostly of calcium carbonate, used for building, making cement, and (when polished) countertops.
from A plain Old English compound: 'lim' (lime, the mineral) plus 'stan' (stone) — literally 'lime-stone,' the rock you bake to make lime. The 'lime' here has nothing to do with the fruit; it traces back through Latin 'limus,' meaning slime or sticky mud, a nod to lime's clinging, mortar-making nature.
- made of death
- mostly skeletons and shells of ancient marine life
- pyramid stuff
- Great Pyramid clad in polished Egyptian limestone
- acid-soluble
- rainwater slowly dissolves it into caves and sinkholes
- becomes marble
- heat and pressure transform it into marble
- cement core
- heated for cement, it built modern civilization
white cliffs of dover — chalk cliffs (limestone) on english coast, 350 feet high, visible from france
great pyramid of giza — built from 2.3 million limestone blocks, constructed 2589-2566 bce
cenotes of yucatan — sinkholes in limestone bedrock in mexico, sacred to maya civilization
carlsbad caverns — massive cave system in new mexico formed by limestone dissolution, 119 rooms