Alabaster is a mineral or rock that is soft, often used for carving, and is processed for plaster powder. Archaeologists and the stone processing industry use the word differently from geologists. The former use is in a wider sense that includes varieties of two different minerals: the fine-grained massive type of gypsum and the fine-grained banded type of calcite. Geologists define alabaster only as the gypsum type. Chemically, gypsum is a hydrous sulfate of calcium, while calcite is a carbonate of calcium.
Limestone is a carbonate sedimentary rock that is often composed of the skeletal fragments of marine organisms such as coral, foraminifera, and molluscs. Its major materials are the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). A closely related rock is dolomite, which contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, CaMg(CO3)2. In old USGS publications, dolomite was referred to as magnesian limestone, a term now reserved for magnesium-deficient dolomites or magnesium-rich limestones.
Calcium carbonate is a chemical compound with the formula CaCO3. It is a common substance found in rocks as the minerals calcite and aragonite (most notably as limestone, which is a type of sedimentary rock consisting mainly of calcite) and is the main component of pearls and the shells of marine organisms, snails, and eggs. Calcium carbonate is the active ingredient in agricultural lime and is created when calcium ions in hard water react with carbonate ions to create limescale. It is medicinally used as a calcium supplement or as an antacid, but excessive consumption can be hazardous and cause poor digestion.
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock, a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite. Calcite is an ionic salt called calcium carbonate or CaCO3. It forms under reasonably deep marine conditions from the gradual accumulation of minute calcite shells (coccoliths) shed from micro-organisms called coccolithophores. Flint (a type of chert) is very common as bands parallel to the bedding or as nodules embedded in chalk. It is probably derived from sponge spicules or other siliceous organisms as water is expelled upwards during compaction. Flint is often deposited around larger fossils such as Echinoidea which may be silicified (i.e. replaced molecule by molecule by flint).
Calcium oxide (CaO), commonly known as quicklime or burnt lime, is a widely used chemical compound. It is a white, caustic, alkaline, crystalline solid at room temperature. The broadly used term "lime" connotes calcium-containing inorganic materials, in which carbonates, oxides and hydroxides of calcium, silicon, magnesium, aluminium, and iron predominate. By contrast, quicklime specifically applies to the single chemical compound calcium oxide. Calcium oxide that survives processing without reacting in building products such as cement is called free lime.
Portland Stone or Portland Stone Formation is a limestone formation from the Tithonian stage of the Jurassic period quarried on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England. The quarries are cut in beds of white-grey limestone separated by chert beds. It has been used extensively as a building stone throughout the British Isles, notably in major public buildings in London such as St Paul's Cathedral and Buckingham Palace. Portland Stone is also exported to many countries—being used for example in the United Nations headquarters building in New York City.
Carrara marble is a type of white or blue-grey marble popular for use in sculpture and building decor. It is quarried in the city of Carrara in the province of Massa and Carrara in the Lunigiana, the northernmost tip of modern-day Tuscany, Italy.
The Solvay process or ammonia-soda process is the major industrial process for the production of sodium carbonate (soda ash, Na2CO3). The ammonia-soda process was developed into its modern form by Ernest Solvay during the 1860s. The ingredients for this are readily available and inexpensive: salt brine (from inland sources or from the sea) and limestone (from quarries). The worldwide production of soda ash in 2005 has been estimated at 42 million metric tons, which is more than six kilograms (13 lb) per year for each person on Earth. Solvay-based chemical plants now produce roughly three-quarters of this supply, with the remaining being mined from natural deposits. This method superseded the Leblanc process.
Dolomite rock (also known as dolomite, dolostone or dolomitic rock) is a sedimentary carbonate rock that contains a high percentage of the mineral dolomite, CaMg(CO3)2. In old USGS publications, it was referred to as magnesian limestone, a term now reserved for magnesium-deficient dolomites or magnesium-rich limestones. Dolomite has a stoichiometric ratio of nearly equal amounts of magnesium and calcium. Most dolomite rock formed as a magnesium replacement of limestone or lime mud before lithification. Dolomite rock is resistant to erosion and can either contain bedded layers or be unbedded. It is less soluble than limestone in weakly acidic groundwater, but it can still develop solution features (karst) over time. Dolomite rock can act as an oil and natural gas reservoir.
Agricultural lime, also called aglime, agricultural limestone, garden lime or liming, is a soil additive made from pulverized limestone or chalk. The primary active component is calcium carbonate. Additional chemicals vary depending on the mineral source and may include calcium oxide. Unlike the types of lime called quicklime and slaked lime, powdered limestone does not require lime burning in a lime kiln; it only requires milling. All of these types of lime are sometimes used as soil conditioners, with a common theme of providing a base to correct acidity, but lime for farm fields today is often crushed limestone. Historically, liming of farm fields in centuries past was often done with burnt lime; the difference is at least partially explained by the fact that affordable mass-production-scale fine milling of stone and ore relies on technologies developed since the mid-19th century.
Lime is a calcium-containing inorganic mineral composed primarily of oxides, and hydroxide, usually calcium oxide and/ or calcium hydroxide. It is also the name for calcium oxide which occurs as a product of coal-seam fires and in altered limestone xenoliths in volcanic ejecta. The word lime originates with its earliest use as building mortar and has the sense of sticking or adhering.
Gurney Slade quarry, grid reference ST626497 is a limestone quarry near Gurney Slade between Binegar and Holcombe, on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England.
Batts Combe quarry, grid reference ST460550 is a limestone quarry on the edge of Cheddar village on the Mendip Hills, Somerset, England.
Pargas is a town and municipality of Finland, in the Archipelago Sea. The big limestone mine in Pargas is the base of the main industry and except for the central parts, the municipality is still mostly rural.
Michigan Limestone and Chemical Company operates the world's largest limestone quarry located near Rogers City, Michigan. It was founded in 1910; however, production didn't begin until 1912. Ownership of the quarry has changed a number of times in recent years, but it is still one of the country's largest producers of limestone. The limestone which it uses is found in the limestone deposit underground in the northeastern part of Northern Michigan near Alpena just south of Rogers City along the shore of Lake Huron.
The Lüneburg Kalkberg is the cap rock of a salt dome in the western part of the German town of Lüneburg. The Kalkberg was a gypsum mine during the middle ages, but is today a Naturschutzgebiet and a common meeting place for city residents.
The Kalkberg is a 91-metre-high rock in the center of Bad Segeberg. The name is a misnomer as it is not made of limestone, but from gypsum.
A Rumford furnace is a kiln for the industrial scale production in the 19th century of calcium oxide, popularly known as quicklime or burnt lime. It was named after its inventor, Benjamin Thompson, also known as Count Rumford, and is sometimes called a Rüdersdorf furnace after the location where it was first built and from where the design rapidly spread throughout Europe.
Bishopswood Meadows is a nature reserve situated within the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in the county of Somerset, England. The reserve comprises five fields totalling 9.3 hectares ; all of the fields are on a gentle north-facing slope with the River Yarty at the base. The reserve, formerly part of Woodend Farm, was purchased by Somerset Wildlife Trust in 1991–92.
A limepit is either a place where limestone is quarried, or a man-made pit used to burn lime stones in the same way that modern-day kilns and furnaces constructed of brick are now used above ground for the calcination of limestone and by which quicklime is produced, an essential component in waterproofing and in wall plastering.
