mining
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Also known as: quarrying
Written by
William Andrew Hustrulid
Fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
portland stone quarry
Category: Science & Tech
- Related Topics:
- mining
- water-jet channeling
- loaf
- feather-and-wedge method
- stone
quarry, place where dimension stone or aggregate (sand, gravel, crushed rock) is mined. The products of dimension stone quarries are prismatic blocks of rock such as marble, granite, limestone, sandstone, and slate. After cutting and polishing, these materials are used in the primary construction of buildings and monuments and also for decorative facing materials applied to the exterior and interior of buildings. Dimension stones are extracted in a highly selective manner, using time-consuming and expensive methods for freeing the blocks from the surrounding rock.
Sand, gravel, and crushed rock quarries employ standard surface-mining techniques. Crushed stone is used for concrete aggregate, for road building, and, in the case of limestone, as flux in blast furnaces and for chemical applications. The quarrying technique consists of drilling and blasting to fragment the rock. A large number of charges are fired at one time, producing up to 20,000 tons of broken stone in one blast. The broken stone is crushed into smaller pieces that are separated into uniform classes by screening.
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mining: Quarrying
