Val di Serra Quarry, Pilcante, Ala, Trento Province, Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Val di Serra Quarry	Quarry
Pilcante	- not defined -
Ala	Commune
Trento Province	Autonomous Province
Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol	Autonomous Region
Italy	Country

Abandoned brucite marble quarry located between the villages of Pilcante and Chizzola, operated by the company Menegolli from 1962 to 1992.

This brucite marble, commercially known as pearl grey marble, is the product of contact metamorphism, originated from Cenozoic basaltic intrusions in Late Triassic dolostone (Dolomia Principale Formation), and contains magnesium minerals such as brucite, hydromagnesite, and lizardite. Some minerals (zeolites etc.) are found in cavities of the magmatic rock.

The presence of cafetite (as aggregates of yellow-orange tabular crystals) and kassite (as spherules of lamellar microcrystals, varying in colour from yellow to orange, brown or greyish), in association with vesuvianite, grossular, magnetite, pyroaurite-2H, hydrotalcite, lizardite, etc., has been recently reported (Bortolozzi et al., 2013).

Mantle peridotite xenoliths consist of four-phases lherzolites and harzburgites with olivine (forsterite), orthopyroxene, clinopyroxene and spinel, in order of decreasing abundances. They only show protogranular texture, that is characterized by coarse olivine and orthopyroxene (>2 mm) and coarse- to medium-sized clinopyroxene and spinel (1–2 mm). Coarse olivine generally shows kink bands and pyroxene is commonly exsolved. Clinopyroxene locally occurs in interstitial positions between olivine and orthopyroxene. Spinel occurs in a variety of textural types such as holly-leaf shaped large grains, small interstitial grains and vermicular symplectite with orthopyroxene. Serpentine group minerals are locally present along the grain boundaries of olivine and within microcracks in olivine (Gasperini et al., 2006).

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References