gneiss
NICE
A banded metamorphic rock formed under intense heat and pressure deep in the earth's crust — its minerals separated into light and dark stripes like the pages of a compressed book. Some gneiss is among the oldest rock on earth, three billion years and older.
Etymology
German: Gneiss, possibly from Middle High German gneist (spark), for the way the rock glints. Or from the Erzgebirge mining region where it was first described.
*
Surprise Me With a Word