For all its 'you've made it' cache, marble is just a chunk of garden-variety limestone that's had an extreme makeover. In geology-speak, it's the metamorphic version of limestone.

Metamorphic rocks that are formed from igneous rocks won’t contain the combustible elements – the ones that burn – but metamorphic rocks made from sedimentary rocks might.

Hopes of finding marble in Jebel Ali have been dashed after rock samples proved to be gypsum. An engineer claimed to have seen sparkling stones in the area and a sample was taken to a factory ...