Dolomite or Dolostone?

Geologists frequently use the term dolomite to describe both the mineral and the carbonate rock that is comprised of that same mineral. However, I find this to be unnecessarily confusing, especially since a clear distinction between calcite and limestone is recognized. So, I've dug up some history to the term dolomite.

In 1768, Swedish natural scientist and “father of modern taxonomy”, Carl Linnaeus (later known as Carl von Linné), briefly described a type of rock he called marmor tardum, translated as slow marble. Marmor tardum, Linnaeus says, is a white marble that is as hard as quartz, but slowly effervesces potentially describing a dolomitized marble. Italian geologist, Giovanni Arduino, also described a marble in 1779 that has been considered to be dolomitized. However, it wasn’t until 1791 that a more complete description of dolomite was published by French geologist Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu, who described dolostones in the Alps (a region then called County Tyrol) and noted their peculiar property of slowly effervescing with acid. The following year, Nicolas-Théodore de Saussure, a Swiss chemist, published a paper in the same journal as Dolomieu’s report, where the slowly effervescing mineral within these rocks was given the name dolomie in honor of Dolomieu. Shortly after, Irish geologist Richard Kirwan published a book on mineralogy with the Englishified name dolomite. 

Dolomite then entered the geologic lexicon as the name for the mineral, and later grew to also be the name of the dolomitic sedimentary rock. In an effort to clarify the usage of this term, Robert R. Shrock published a revised classification of sedimentary rocks in 1948, which included the term dolostone for the name of the dolomitic rock. Although, it has been argued that dolostone is an improper term, as it crudely truncates the origin of the name of the rock – Déodat de Dolomieu – and thus, dolomie would be a more proper term for the rock. However, Shrock did not state that the term dolostone is named after Dolomieu, only that dolostones are “rocks consisting largely of the mineral dolomite,” potentially validating its usage.

Dolomie has not been welcomed into the geologic lexicon, however, I after becoming accustomed to using the term dolomite for both the mineral and the rock, I have recently been converted to Shrock's term, dolostone, to clearly differentiate the rock from the mineral.