Overview

This book offers a comprehensive review devoted exclusively to slate as dimension stone. Within the first part, the book covers the different architectonical applications as well as in detail the specific petrographic, fabric, strength and physical properties of slates. Methods and techniques of data acquisition are thoroughly explained and accompanied with numerous data. Slate standards are introduced and compared in respect to their importance of product quality. One chapter deals with the weathering of slate, i.e., the weathering processes and corresponding environmental conditions. This is supplemented by a classification of weathering phenomena according to the international standard. The chapter of mining and production gives an overview of the different ways of exploitation and the related geotechnical aspects as well as methods of production and design of the workflow from the beginning to the final product. The second part of the book is devoted to a description of the world-wide slate deposits. This includes the geological setting, properties and usage. The descriptions are largely accompanied by maps and by photographs to give the reader an impression of the appearance of the slates. All chapters are uniquely depicted so that the reader can also easily understand topics outside his subject area. It is an essential book for scientist, engineers and professionals in geology, conservations science, architecture, mining and those active in the slate industry.

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9783032184344

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Author Information

Jörn Wichert has been working with slate as a building stone for more than 25 years and has visited numerous deposits in Europe and the USA in this context. He has conducted deposit surveys and extensive material science investigations for a wide variety of slate deposits. These include determining geological setting, stability calculations for mines as well as petrographic, mineralogical, and rock mechanical investigations. Jörn Wichert’s main occupation is dealing with engineering geological and geotechnical issues in the field of mass movements such as rockfalls and landslides. This includes numerical models for stability calculations, safety concepts for slopes and the planning as well as the installation of monitoring systems and the development of expert systems. This work took the author to Svaneti in the Greater Caucasus (Georgia). This region consists largely of slate, so he also conducted initial investigations on the material properties and mining potentials. Another field of research for the author is the influence of fires on the strength of sandstone as a building stone and of forest fires on the stability of sandstone rocks in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, a mountain range which stretches across the border between Germany and the Czech Republic.

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