NATURAL STONE DEPOSITS IN RUSSIA
Granite – the stone that made the country famous
The granite mined in Russia can boast not only the dark colour characteristic of marble. For example, in the North-West of Russia, one can find the unique rapakivi granite, which has a dark pink hue. In the Urals and Transbaikalia, amazonite granite, which resembles an emerald by its colour, bluish-green and green, has been found. In the Leningrad Region, the Republic of Karelia and the Kola Peninsula pink and blood-red granite are mined. And the pink-yellow stone, which can be found in the Shokshinsky quarry, became world famous, because three monuments of world history were made of it at once: Napoleon Bonaparte’s sarcophagus (France, Paris), the monument to Nicholas I (Russia, Saint Petersburg), the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (Russia, Moscow).
About the best facing materials – travertine and onyx
It was in our country that an amazing stone was found, not only for its excellent performance characteristics (strength, frost resistance), but also for its special beauty – marble onyx. The variety of soft tones is simply astounding: it seems that nature used an exclusively pastel palette when painting this stone. The colour shades of onyx vary widely: from milky to golden, from soft green to brownish, from light pink to amber.
In Russia, the deposits of this wonderful stone are not very wide: onyx can be found in the Primorsky Territory, Kolyma, and Chukotka.
As for travertine, an excellent coating and building stone, it is a kind of symbol of the Caucasus. Travertine mined in Pyatigorsk is also popular. From ancient times it used to decorate the town’s public buildings and residential houses. Travertine can be found in Kamchatka and in the Gatchina district of the Leningrad Region.
How is natural stone extracted?
Today there are three methods of mining natural stone:
- The blasting method. A hole is drilled into the stone mass, into which an explosive is placed. The explosion causes the stone fragments to break off. The main disadvantage of this method is the high percentage of damage to the material: the waste often reaches a third of the quarried mass. The advantages of this method include extremely low costs;
- The air cushion method. A hole is drilled into the rock mass, and a large cushion is inserted instead of explosive, which is then inflated with air. This results in an explosion that is gentler and leaves much of the material undamaged, as there are no microcracks in the stone. Even here, however, the disadvantages are not without problems – it is impossible to predict exactly where the explosion will affect the material and where it will splinter off;
- The stonecutter method. The stone cutter is a special piece of high-tech equipment that is nowadays used to extract stone in the most efficient way. The stone-cutter is gentle on the structure of the material, and allows you to predict the result of human actions as accurately as possible. And the most important thing – with the help of a stone cutter a valuable natural resource is used in a waste-free and most efficient way. As for the disadvantages, the only drawback of this method is its high cost. It is not a cheap pleasure to make and use stone-cutting.
The material of the future
Today the field of natural stone mining, and its use is rapidly evolving. Separate attention deserves that fact that resources of a natural stone on a planet are inexhaustible. Nowadays the methods of extraction of granite, onyx and marble are becoming more perfect, the transition to efficient technology is being carried out, the cost of professional equipment is being reduced, which allows you to actively develop this industry. This is why natural stone is the material of the future.
Source: www.dvamolotka.ru
