Rock v. Stone: The Great Conundrum

Street Smart Naturalist · Jul 16, 2026 · 9m · transcript

Rock or Stone? Questions such as this that have tempted many of the great minds over the centuries. Not surprisingly, I, too, a geogeek, have pondered this conundrum and its implications. In my book, Stories in Stone, I used the terms interchangeably, based mostly on how they sounded or how frequently I used one or the other. I still do that, but realize that there might be other ways to consider the use of rock and stone.

In his wonderful book, Stone by Stone, Robert Thorson writes: “Rock is raw material in situ. Stone usually connotes either human handling or human use….” In other words…