Koeberg quarry, Cadier en Keer, Eijsden-Margraten, Limburg, Netherlandsi

Regional Level Types
Koeberg quarry	Quarry
Cadier en Keer	Town
Eijsden-Margraten	Municipality
Limburg	Province
Netherlands	Country

The Koeberg quarry or Geological Monument Groeve Koeberg is a marl quarry and geological monument in the Dutch municipality of Eijsden-Margraten in South Limburg. The open-pit mine is located northeast of Cadier en Keer on the southern slope of the Koeberg, in the west of the Margraten Plateau. The Sibbersloot dry valley is located on the southwest side of the quarry. The quarry is located in the area of ​​Bemelerberg & Schiepersberg.

The Bunderberg quarry is located approximately 300 meters to the northwest and the Juliana quarry is located approximately 200 meters to the southeast.

The quarry was mined by block breakers to extract limestone for fertilizing fields and meadows, for building materials and for (burnt) plaster. In 1935, limestone quarrying for lime burning began in the quarry.

In 1939, the city council of Cadier en Keer decided to have a lime kiln built at the Koeberg. The soft marl from the Koeberg quarry turned out to be unsuitable for burning in the lime kiln and was sold to the Staatsmijnen ("State Mines") for the preparation of fertilizer. Hard chunks also came from the quarry and these could be burned in the lime kiln. This burnt lime was used as masonry lime, as plaster, as lime for whitewashing buildings and as lime fertilizer for fields.

The lime kiln was closed around 1953 and then demolished.

The area of ​​South Limburg was a Cretaceous Sea in the Upper Cretaceous period. During that period, a layer of limestone was built up here from the remains of (limestone) skeletons of animals. The deposits in the quarry are, from top to bottom, loess from the Schimmert Member, Maasgrind (Valkenburg Member from the Beegden Formation) and various layers of limestone from the Maastricht Formation. The layers of the Maastricht Formation that are exposed in the quarry are the Emael Limestone, the Romontbos Horizont, the Schiepersberg Limestone, the Schiepersberg Horizont, the Gronsveld Limestone and the Sint Pieter Horizont. Below this, the Valkenburg Limestone is largely hidden under erosion material.

The National Geological Survey carried out a drilling just outside the quarry, drilling approximately 150 meters deep. This drilling first went through the Valkenburg Limestone, the Lichtenberg Horizont and then the entire Gulpen Formation. At a depth of 16.8 meters, one arrived at a thick flint layer of the Lanaye Limestone (Gulpen Formation), which is exposed on the surface in the Blankenberg Quarry. The drilling then proceeded through the glauconitic siltstones of the Vaals Formation and then the fine sands of the Aachen Formation. At a depth of 149 meters, they arrived at a package of hard limestones from the Lower Carboniferous.

Other Databases

Wikipedia:	https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koeberggroeve_(Cadier_en_Keer)
Wikidata ID:	Q66533869

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