Ornamental stone potential areas for land use planning: a case study in a limestone massif from Portugal

Abstract

Nowadays, the difficulties of the mining sector in accessing the territory are mostly related to inadequate land use plans. Mineral potential maps have become quite relevant for the land use planning authorities as a decision support tool. This work's goal is to present a methodology based on geological criteria, for the delimitation of potential areas for ornamental stones production in a limestone area of Portugal known as Maciço Calcário Estremenho. This is one of the world's most important regions producing limestone blocks for ornamental purposes. The methodology, applied at a scale similar to the commonly used in land use planning, considers two main geological-based criteria for the definition of potential areas, namely the homogeneity criterion, related to the textural and chromatic homogeneity of the potentially productive lithologic units, and the dimension criterion, which refers to the thickness of the productive unit, to the volume of the deposit and to its spatial layout. Based on the criteria, two main types of potential areas for ornamental stones' production were delimited: specific areas, where the lithostratigraphic units demonstrate ornamental suitability at a very local scale due to highly appreciated particular features, and areas corresponding to the entire outcrop area of some of the lithostratigraphic units, which due to the resource volume are the most relevant potential areas.

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

“…During the late Miocene, the MCE was also influenced by Alpine compressive tectonics. The exploitation occurs mainly in strata of coarse-grained calciclastic sparitic rocks of some horizons of Middle Jurassic age (Carvalho and Lisboa 2018) formed at a carbonate ramp depositional system (Azerêdo 1998(Azerêdo , 2007. Cream colored fine-to coarse-grained calcarenites showing several types of sedimentary laminations can be found.…”

“…Cream colored fine-to coarse-grained calcarenites showing several types of sedimentary laminations can be found. These laminations are very important to define the texture of the stone, since from the same facies different textural patterns can be found according to the cutting direction (Carvalho and Lisboa 2018). The Upper Jurassic limestones are exploited in two sites where a grey calciclastic micritic limestone is found (Carvalho and Lisboa 2018).…”

“…These laminations are very important to define the texture of the stone, since from the same facies different textural patterns can be found according to the cutting direction (Carvalho and Lisboa 2018). The Upper Jurassic limestones are exploited in two sites where a grey calciclastic micritic limestone is found (Carvalho and Lisboa 2018). The thickness of the exploitable limestones ranging from 40 to 150 m and 50 quarries are currently spread in main six clusters (Carvalho and Lisboa, 2018;.…”

“…The Upper Jurassic limestones are exploited in two sites where a grey calciclastic micritic limestone is found (Carvalho and Lisboa 2018). The thickness of the exploitable limestones ranging from 40 to 150 m and 50 quarries are currently spread in main six clusters (Carvalho and Lisboa, 2018;.…”

Editorial to the topical collection in Environmental Earth Sciences “Stone in the architectural heritage: from quarry to monuments—environment, exploitation, properties and durability”

“…The delimitation of potential areas for ornamental stone production uses methodologies based on the main geological criteria. These are the homogeneity criterion, which is related to the textural and chromatic homogeneity of the potentially productive lithologic units, and the dimension criterion, referring to the thickness of the productive unit (Carvalho and Lisboa 2018). However, in some cases, like the marbles, the textural and colour heterogeneity enhances the visual quality of the material (Menningen et al 2018a).…”