When countertops are fabricated, a reinforcing rod is often used around weak points such as the narrow areas in front of or in back of sink cutouts. When used, this rod is installed from below by notching into the stone and epoxying the rod into place. Today, most of the time when this is done, fiberglass or even stainless steel rods are used and sometimes, actual steel rods are used. Steel rods are fine too... until they get wet. 

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When steel reinforcing rods are used and moisture reaches them, they begin to rust. When it rusts, it expands with tremendous force, enough to crack the stone it resides in. Around sinks for example, this shows up as large cracks and separations running all along the front or back of the sink or other area where a rod may have been used.

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Fortunately, most of these are repairable although it's important that most of the broken pieces are not lost or misplaced. In any event, the stone is pulled apart and the rod is extracted. Then, all the pieces are carefully cleaned and prepped then put back together using special epoxy adhesives and clamped together to cure. Then, the top portions of the surface cracks are filled with tinted epoxies, often several different colors in order to capture the colors of the affected stone, and then honed and/or polished to match.