I'm gonna be a pedant and nudnik here. Diorite is a very tough rock but not especially hard. Its principal components are feldspar and pyroxenes for a Mohs' hardness of about 7, equivalent to quartz, another very tough mineral.
Diamonds are not required to cut it. The classic method, quartz sand, works, if slowly and with tremendous amounts of labor. Modern work is done with diamond because it is so much more efficient than other methods, including the use of alumina, the next-toughest abrasive with a Mohs hardness of 9.0.
<edit> "simply impossible on a human scale" I disagree, because it got done, didn't it? I find the idea that we had nonhuman assistance in violation of Occam's Chainsaw.
<edit> Puma Punku sounds like a dish, perhaps a complement to Chicken Itza. |
