Natural stone is a common building material, characterized by strength, durability and natural beauty. There are many such places on the planet, they are easy to find, it is enough for geologists to study the surrounding topography and geological sections to make a conclusion about the presence of a field of industrial scale.

Stone is mined not only in the mountains and on the hills, stone strata also occur on the plains. In essence, stone is hard rock that alternates with soft sediment, such as sand and clay. There are hard sedimentary rocks, the most common of which are limestone, shell rock, sandstone. The use of stone is construction, architecture, sculptural products, the creation of decor items.

Types of stone and their characteristics

It is necessary to distinguish stones that are considered minerals, they include a whole group of minerals with different parameters of strength, abrasion and other finishing characteristics.

• asbestos is a fibrous mineral that has the properties of stone in a compressed form;
• travertine, which experts consider an intermediate phase between limestone and marble;
• gypsum (alabaster) - used not only for sculptures, but also for the construction of houses;
• mica - natural flexible glass of different transparency and color;
• marble, quartzite, diabase, silicon characterized by a beautiful texture and used in various sectors of the economy.

Another group of natural stones is rocks, that is, conglomerates consisting of several minerals.They can be combined into categories of origin. Stones of volcanic formation, that is, those born from the eruption of volcanoes under tremendous pressure and the influence of maximum temperatures.

They are distinguished by high strength parameters; at the cut, they have a beautiful pattern and multi-colored blotches. Among them, granite used for the construction of buildings, gabbro, from which door handles, sculptures, gneiss, which is a granite with striped veins, are made popular.

Stones of magmatic origin, that is, representing frozen magma. This pumice with air bubbles, grainy and very durable diorite, basalt, which is considered a solid base under the surface layers of the earth's crust.

Sedimentary rocks - limestone, sandstone, shell rock, formed as sediments of the seabed. They were formed by the precipitation of mineral suspensions dissolved in water.

Slates are various minerals and rocks that have a shale form in the earth's crust. This is a whole group of stone materials used mainly in construction.

In addition, soft minerals such as talc and chalk, which are most often used in crushed form, are found on the ground in the form of stone deposits.

Stone mining methods

The main method of developing stone deposits is quarry. Initially, a place of occurrence is opened, the upper layers of the earth's crust are removed, a stone monolith is exposed and the laying of trenches begins. A vertical fault is made, and then the dumping of stone fragments and loading them onto vehicles begins.

In this case, specialized equipment is used, which splits or cuts monolithic pieces.Among the sought-after modern production technologies are the following:

• drilling and blasting method;
• stone-cutting;
• method of pumping air into the holes.

Stone-cutting is the most expensive, but preserving the raw material in its original form; when using it, the lowest amount of material loss is noted. If the formation is destroyed by explosions or air pressure, the loss can be much greater, but the costs of these production methods are minimal.

Where is the stone mined?

The main stone deposits in Europe are located in Italy, Greece, Bulgaria, Spain, Portugal. Among the Asian stone-mining countries can be called India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Egypt, in America - this is Brazil. Famous deposits in Russia are located on the Kola Peninsula, in Karelia. It is here that stone is extracted for export.