quarry

Take a look around

For most people a quarry is an unknown, intriguing world yet an initial look is often enough to trigger their curiosity. First time visitors to our quarry immediately notice that there are two main mining levels, an upper one characterised by shades of yellow and white stone while at depths of up to six metres below, a striking spectrum of red tones catches the eye.

In between is an horizon formed of fine grained sandstone and siltstone that is frequently distinguished by so called "ripple marks", wave like structures within the surface of the rock, which demonstrate that the layers were once created by flowing water. Fortunately, the bedrock within Schweinstal was predominately formed horizontally and this greatly facilitates the quarrying of the stone.

Stone as great as our reputation for quality

When dynamiting sandstone it is advantageous to extract as large a piece of stone as possible, yet the horizontal course of the bedrock and vertical fractures within the rock itself will ultimately determine the size of each block of stone that can actually be quarried.

How large a block of stone that can be mined from our quarry was demonstrated in the year 2000, when we successfully extracted a block with a length of close to 12 metres. If you have ever visited us then you probably have already seen this block, as it now forms the upper part of the entrance gate to our quarry.

Drilling, dynamiting and cut to size

Above the workable sandstone in our quarry lies a layer of more brittle stone of the Karlstal rock course that is generally unsuitable as a building material, while the base of the rock course itself remains inaccessible and is subsequently not mined. Should you be interested in seeing such stone then the castle ruins of Burg Nanstein, that lie just a few kilometres away in Landstuhl, can be visited.

From the remaining sandstone manageable blocks of stone can be dynamited out of the rock course, following some strategic hole drilling, and then split and cut into any size required.