The nearby Mount Panola and Mount Arabia are similar to stone mountain though smaller. Stone Mountain did not form like the mountains of a mountain range like the Appalachians. The shifting of the earth's crust beneath the continents created lots of heat and friction and melted a large amount of rock below the surface to liquid. This magma bubbled up towards earth's surface but did not make it all the way. The magma slowly hardened into granite.
Granite is an igneous rock, like lava because it was formed by crystallization of magma.
The granite at Stone Mountain consists of quartz, mica and feldspar. There are areas on the mountain where these rock types can easily be seen on the surface. Stone Mountain granite was quarried for about 120 years, ending in 1978. There are many areas of the park where the effect of quarrying can be seen- look for the ledges of rock, the drill holes in the stone, the quarry ponds and the piles of quarry rubble. Unique plants can be found on Stone Mountain, plants which are rare across much of our state.