Quartzite

A long, long time ago, Kari Quartzite was a sandy beach, but she has been pressed and heated. That’s why she has changed a bit, but she is mostly made of quartz, just like the sand once was.

I have traveled quite far! All the way from Upper Telemark; I was once a fine, white sandy beach there. As far as I remember, anyway. My memory isn’t the best, you see-I am more than a billion years old.

I have experienced much of the same as Gerda Gneiss. On our restless Earth, I too was once deep down in a mighty mountain range. It’s busy times here on Earth, you know-there’s a new mountain range forming every 500 million years. And I, who was such fine sand, was pressed together, my tiny sand grains were fused, and then I became the fine, white Kari Quartzite.

But I’m not just pretty, I’m useful too. Without me, you wouldn’t have a PC or a mobile phone, and you wouldn’t have solar panels on your cabin either. You might hear from my name that I’m made of quartz? And that’s a useful and important mineral that was extracted from the mountains in Kragerø for many years. I myself come from Gaustatoppen and have traveled away with the glaciers, but that’s another story.