Evaluation of the Portuguese Ornamental Stone Resources

Abstract

Portugal produces a great diversity of ornamental stones. Besides the internationally known white and pink marbles, also light cream limestones are produced, as well as grey, yellow and pink granites, and dark grey slates. A first exercise is presented on the evaluation of the available resources of ornamental stones in the whole Portuguese territory. The results show a total availability of 410 million cubic meters, of which 274 million refer to granite, 76 million to limestone, 51 million to marble, and 9 million to slate.

Building stone quarries: resource evaluation by block modelling and unmanned aerial photogrammetric surveys

“…These data were obtained in the ongoing extraction areas, the less fractured of the quarries. Therefore, the values of the joint spacing are higher than those mentioned by Carvalho (2013) who measured the more fractured areas.…”

“…The jointing observed in the studied quarries show the WNW-ESE joint set as predominant, with differences among the quarries. These differences are related with the tectonic evolution of this area as point out by Carvalho (2013, mentioning the following main joint sets: NNE-SSW, WSW-ENE, WNW-ESE, NW-SE, and NNW-SSE. The joint spacing values are more frequent in the range 1-2 m, with low values higher than 4 m. The values of the joint spacing denote the possibility of extracting large blocks in some area of the quarries.…”

“…To realize this critical point, it is crucial to concentrate more on geological conditions in the deposits, to optimize a sustainable extraction of resources (Siegesmund and Török 2014). There are several conditioning factors of the exploitation and utilization of the building stones, some related with material itself like the physico-mechanical properties and others with geological constraints at outcrop scale (Carvalho et al 2013;Yarahmadi et al 2015Yarahmadi et al , 2019aYarahmadi et al , 2019bMustafa et al 2016;Sousa et al 2017Sousa et al , 2018Siegesmund et al 2018;Sousa 2019).…”

Petrophysical properties of limestones: influence on behaviour under different environmental conditions and applications

“…The competitiveness in the building stone industry demands a clear picture of the possibilities of the different uses for each stone, point outing the qualities but also the limitations (Carvalho et al 2013;Mustafa et al 20126;Yarahmadi et al 2019b). Different purposes as new construction or monument rehabilitation demand detailed information to ensure the best choice.…”

Automatic classification of ornamental stones using Machine Learning techniques A study applied to limestone

“…A indústria de extração e transformação de pedra constitui uma atividade extremamente importante e com um peso significativo ao nível da receita económica nacional. Portugal na sua área geográfica dispõe de cerca de 410 milhões de metros cúbicos de rochas ornamentais, com uma distribuição de 274 milhões referentes a granitos, 76 milhões a calcários, 51 milhões a mármores e 9 milhões a ardósias [1].…”