Quarry
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A quarry is a place from which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate has been excavated from the ground. A quarry is the same thing as an open-pit mine from which minerals are extracted. The only non-trivial difference between the two is that open-pit mines that produce building materials and dimension stone are commonly referred to as quarries.
The word quarry can also include the underground quarrying for stone, such as Bath stone.
Types of rock
Types of rock extracted from quarries include:
- Chalk
- China clay
- Cinder
- Clay
- Coal
- Construction aggregate (sand and gravel)
- Coquina
- Diabase
- Gabbro
- Granite
- Gritstone
- Gypsum
- Limestone
- Marble
- Ores
- Phosphate rock
- Sandstone
- Slate
Slabs
Many quarry stones such as marble, granite, limestone, and sandstone are cut into larger slabs and removed from the quarry. The surfaces are polished and finished with varying degrees of sheen or luster. Polished slabs are often cut into tiles or countertops and installed in many kinds of residential and commercial properties. Natural stone quarried from the earth is often considered a luxury and tends to be a highly durable surface, thus highly desirable.
In Art and Literature
In her response to an engraving entitled Waterfall and Stone Quarry, near Boscastle, Letitia Elizabeth Landon ignores the specific and glories in the wonderful structures raised by man from quarried materials, citing in particular, Westminster Abbey.
See also
- Clay pit
- Coal mining
- Collecting fossils
- Gravel pit
- List of minerals
- List of rock types
- List of stones
- Miner
- Mountaintop removal mining
- Opencast mining
- Quarry lake
- Quarries (biblical)
References
