Does marble have fossils?

[Nashville615]

Hello everyone, my name is Jennifer, and I'm a homeowner in Nashville, TN. Thank you for taking a moment to help me with this question! We just had some black and white 12x12 marble flooring installed, and from day one, 3 pieces were cracked through, many have veins that you can clearly feel on the surface, many tiles were already badly scratched, and one of the black tiles has a large unsightly white blob on it. The contractor's manager is telling us that the blob is a seashell fossil and the bumpy veining is a natural feature of stone that used to be on the seafloor that gives it "interest," and we just have to be understanding about that. She then sent me a picture of a honed version of one of our tiles to see if we'd like to have them hone the shiny marble down to a duller finish to help, but is refusing to replace all the black tiles (except for the 3 broken ones), even though we offered to pay to replace them with something higher quality with fewer imperfections. She said that would be impractical and they would refuse to do it, even if we paid them again. She would only consider replacing just the broken tiles or redoing the whole floor at our cost. Thoughts? Are we being unreasonable? I've never heard of marble having fossils, only limestone. TIA!

[Nashville615]

Forgot to attach a pic of the honed black marble tile sample she sent me.

[Tile & Stone Guild]

The black appears to be Negro Marquina which is quarried in Spain. I can’t tell from the pic if it’s a fossil, but I do tell folks who buy stone that it is a rock so variation is expected.

It’s brittle so cracked pieces in a order are normal, how they cracked on your floor need more info on how it was installed. Could of broke while installing and they left it. Sometimes it easier to start over instead of ripping things out.

[Nashville615]

Thank you so much for the reply. The cracks are in a doorway corner, and the tiler said they were cracked by the construction crew during the widening of the doorway after he'd already finished the work. They are definitely replacing those with no hassle.
I'm just wondering if it's unrealistic to ask the tiler to remove and replace the few tiles (4) that have obvious weird sections and veining that you can feel, using the remaining tiles leftover from the job? (There's a stack of them in my basement, and the majority of them look great -- no weird spots.) The manager essentially refused to even consider it, even with us offering to pay a second time. Thanks for your help!

[Tile & Stone Guild]

Not unreasonable if you aren’t happy. If for example you asked the repair guy to do it, you may void the warranty or open a can of worms. When installed correctly things can get a little sideways if it doesn’t come out easily. Chipping of adjacent tiles or other.

Sometimes it’s better to admire the character of the stone, produced by nature.

Caveat Emptor and Caveat Venditor apply here.

[ranchopedro]

Mostly the fossils dont survive the metamorphic process as something recognizable.
https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/acidrain/4.html

...but they can
http://earthsci.org/story/cooked_fos...d_fossils.html

[jadnashua]

Marble is a metamorphic rock, which means that it is changed by heat and pressure over time. Usually, there’s not much left of natural things like shells, but it depends on the duration of the heating and how much pressure it’s under in the metamorphic process.

[Metropolitan Ceramics]

I used to import marble, limestone, and travertine for Florida Tile. In my experience, marble doesn't typically have fossils for the reasons others have pointed out, but it does start life as less dense stone such as limestone that is then compressed and heated. Limestone definitely has fossils so it's possible that the marble could. The veins have a different density than the black areas so when the entire surface is polished, it's not unusual for the veins to not be abraded away at the same rate which leaves them slightly raised. The white spot in your photo looks more like epoxy filler than a fossil to me but without seeing the back of the piece it's hard to say definitively. As someone who doesn't have to live with it, your floor looks quite nice and what you're describing not out of character for marble. I'm sorry you're not happy with your floor, if you do replace it I would suggest a marble-look porcelain tile. Otherwise I would let them replace the three broken ones and the one with the white 'blob' as a compromise.