Cava Romana, Aurisina Cave (Nabrežina Kamnolomi), Duino-Aurisina (Devin-Nabrežina), Trieste Province, Friuli Venezia Giulia, Italyi

Regional Level Types
Cava Romana	Quarry
Aurisina Cave (Nabrežina Kamnolomi)	Village
Duino-Aurisina (Devin-Nabrežina)	Commune
Trieste Province	Province
Friuli Venezia Giulia	Autonomous Region
Italy	Country

Limestone quarry exploited since the 1st century BC.

Aurisina Stone is a general term used to indicate several varieties of biomicritic and fossiliferous limestones (from grainstone to wackestone) quarried in the Aurisina quarrying district since the Roman Age (e.g. from the top portion of the so-called "Roman Quarry" or "Cava Romana"). These limestones outcrop in the Classical Karst Region of northeastern Italy and southwestern Slovenia, and belong to the carbonate sequences of the northwesternmost part of the External Dinarides. Stratigraphically, the Aurisina limestones belong to the late Cretaceous Sežana (late Turonian – early Santonian) and Lipica (Santonian-Campanian) Formations (Cucchi et al. 1987; Jurkovšek et al. 2016), the latter including the most economilally relevant layers, constituted by massive beds with homogeneous texture of biomicrites and biosparites with abundant rudist bioclasts, deposited in a shallow-water platform from low-energy littoral and lagoonal to high-energy open shelf environments.

Aurisina Stone is a rock that has been intensively used since Roman times to realize buildings, infrastructures and artifacts (e.g. statues, funerary inscriptions, etc.) in many cities of the Regio X Venetia et Histria (e.g. Aquileia, Concordia Sagittaria, Oderzo, Altino, Padua, Verona, Brescia, Cremona, Piacenza, Mantua), Regio VIII Aemilia (e.g. Modena, Reggio-Emilia, Ravenna, Rimini, Fano) and Regio XI Transpadana (e.g. Milan, Pavia).

The present-day exploitation mainly concerns the following three varieties commercially known as Fiorito (large rudist shells, rudstone-floatstone), Granitello (coarse-sand shell fragments, grainstone-packstone), and Roman stone (fine shell fragments, packstone-wackestone).

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References