Marmorera quarries, Busca, Cuneo Province, Piedmont, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Marmorera quarries	Group of Quarries (Abandoned)
Busca	Commune
Cuneo Province	Province
Piedmont	Region
Italy	Country

Abandoned quarries of banded calcite, commercially known as "Alabastro di Busca", in a karst system hosted in dolomite marble.

This decorative stone, in which the forms of stalactites, stalagmites and flowstones are clearly observable in the polished slabs, is characterized by the alternation of lighter and darker bands. The daker bands show a typical red-brown colour, due to the presence of detrital materials, such as iron oxides and clays. The detrital minerals identified in the red-brown bands include muscovite, hematite, quartz, rutile, fluorapatite, paragonite, zircon, kaolinite, monazite-(Ce), and manganese oxides (Marengo & Costa, 2016).

The only remnants of the former quarrying activity, performed intermittently from the 17th century to the 1960s, are currently 5 artificial canyons carved in the hill known as Eremo di Belmonte. These almost parallel canyons, oriented in NW-SE direction, are 50-100 m long, 2-4 m wide and have walls up to 35 m tall. Quarrying removed most of the carbonate concretion and exposed the host rock, a grey dolomite marble often coated with a red-brown layer of "terra rossa". A small cave, named Grotta della Marmorera, was discovered in 2000 at the end of one of the canyons.

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References