Huh. That doesn't look like a natural imperfection to me. I can't quite tell what is going on there. Is is just on the surface? That's what it looks like. But the pics are hard to relate to.

That looks like etching to me. Chemical etching. Picture number 2 looks like it has "depth".

I would be worried that this is really marble.............

Marble. Etching. And rust.

Pretty sure it's not marble, but hey I could be wrong. It's very translucent, looks like glass in many places, and if it is marble, there are some bigger issues with the place I bought it from.

I'm no expert, but from a laymans perspective, its like they put a patch of epoxy in, and buffed it out "a little". in the light it's bad, but without a reflection, it's bearable. Doesn't go all the way through, its more like a patch.

Squeeze a little lemon, and wait a minute. Then wipe it off. You'll know it's marble then.

I'm not convinced that this is the usual kind of etching that would happen to marble. I think, like OP said, that it's some sort of patch that was not particularly well done. But it is worth checking to see if it might be marble.

Can we see another, father away pic of the stone? Do you know what its called? Did it have these patches when you saw it in raw form?

It looks like some of the filler areas I had in my typhoon bordeaux granite slabs.

That's a nasty factory fill job and could be made to look much nicer.

I think Daniël Konrad Link nailed it as a "Natural Quartz" with "Resin Filler". My question now is how do I put a little bit of polish on these resin areas so it isn't so dull? Is this even possible? I have asked the installers/fabricator/supplier this same question and they said no, but I still think that perhaps someone else has a way to do this, or could point me in a direction to do further research.

Thank you everyone for taking a moment to look and comment on my post. Really appreciate all the feedback.

I agree with Daniel. That's a resin filler. It's similar to the resin fillers in my limestone.

gregg_machel, hi, a body of resin wont take polish like a stone, therefore I dont know of a way to enhance the shine of these resin fillers; maybe a stone fabricator in your area has some special formula, it is worth a chance you calling or visiting 01 or 02 stone fabricators, show the pictures and ask,

"...a body of resin wont take polish like a stone" Fillachip light cured resin will. While you may not get a perfect gloss match, it would certainly be much more inconspicuous.

Is it possible to remove resin and replace with a resin like Fillachip light cured resin?

I'm curious ... did you view the slab beforehand and see these "imperfections"?

Those look big and deep enough to try an insert repair. It might not look perfectly natural, but it'd look a heck of a lot better than that and probably better than a polyester pour-over.

jellytoast I did look at the slabs beforehand. I saw some of these, but not to the degree that I see them now. Probably my fault on that one for not looking close enough. The one thing I'd like to change about this whole process is to communicate better on expectations from the fabricators. I thought they would take care of these and "buff" them out a bit. As experience now has taught me, that is not the case.

Part of me just wishes I did Granite, but the other part tells me I have a far superior product as long as I can live with these blemishes.

gregg_machel, your counter most possibly came from a ~ 55 sqft slab (01 or more slabs), that came from a ~ 285 cubic feet quartz block; quartz is abundant on earth, but to find such huge piece of quartz, to process and ship overseas.... that is not everyday.

Many times the big deposit of quartz is just a small limited vein cutting inside a granite quarry. So having this stone is special enough; I see it vibrant and full of life.

You can explain to your friends that these are resin fillers from the industrial process, "after all, have you seen such big of piece of quartz already?"

The bigger the quartz inside a granite, the more valuable is the stone (google search: Patagonia granite, Alpinus granite for example); the bigger the quartz it is natural to have cleavages and fissures,

10 years ago there was no technology to cut and polish these big natural quartz slabs, the advancement on technology made use... brought this marvel of nature to us,

Maybe you can incorporate some decoration element on top of some of the fillers (hide few of them, or make them less eye-catching), like a folded cloth, just to turn less evident,

Part of me just wishes I did Granite, but the other part tells me I have a far superior product as long as I can live with these blemishes.

As I mentioned, I had these types of fillers in my granite too except my pattern was very busy so it wasn't as noticeable. Don't beat yourself up. It's hard to see it when the slabs are vertical and as you said, you figured they wouldn't be noticeable.

(I know this topic is 5 years old, but I know old topics get read every day}

I think the OP is incorrect in his belief that the dullness of the surface is the problem. Instead, what catches the eye is the 3 dimensional BOTTOM surface at the interface between the stone and the filler resin.

That interface is visible because of the difference in refractive index between the stone and the filler resin. The resin should be matched to the chemistry of the stone. Lapidaries use Opticon when filling cracks in quartz-chemistry stones like agate and jasper for that reason.

Standard 2-part resins won't optically merge with the stone and the joint will be visible. The UV-cure resins were created to join glass-fiber cables so may or may not be right.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tj2KMZhfoc If you want the resin to look like it's part of the stone, the refractive index needs to match. Slab sellers and installers should know this and should know which resin filler to use for different stones.

(if you're filling a crack, a trick lapidaries use is to put the uncatalized resin on the stone then heat it with a lamp to let the resin get into the crack. Later they put the catalyst on the outside. I suspect it doesn't catalyze all the way through, but the job is done and the crack is sealed (and not visible).)

I hope this helps someone.

I realize this is an old thread, but am faced with the same issue on a quartzite countertop slab. Is there any solution? Is there a process to remove existing resin?