Prospecting and development........................................4 Quarrying........................................................................5 Making primary cuts ................................................ 5 Bed lifting................................................................. 5 Block subdivision ..................................................... 5 Hoisting.................................................................... 5 Yard operations..............................................................5 Storage and transportation...................................... 5 Scabbling................................................................. 5 Milling .............................................................................6 Drafting and pattern making .................................... 6 Block handling ......................................................... 6 Sawing..................................................................... 6 Planing..................................................................... 6 Turning and fluting................................................... 6 Cutting and carving.................................................. 6 Finishing .................................................................. 6 Physical and chemical properties...................................7 Specifications .................................................................7 Marketing........................................................................7 Crushed and broken stone ................................................7 Uses ...............................................................................7 LIMESTONE AND DOLOMITE Wide range of applications ...................................... 7 Uses for which physical properties are most BY OLIVER BOWLES important.................................................................. 7 Information Circular 7738 Concrete aggregate ............................................. 7 Road stone........................................................... 8 Railroad ballast .................................................... 8 Asphalt filler ......................................................... 8 Riprap .................................................................. 8 Coal-mine dusting................................................ 8 Sewage filter beds ............................................... 8 Stucco and terrazzo............................................. 8 UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR Douglas McKay, Secretary Poultry grit............................................................ 8 BUREAU OF MINES Sand..................................................................... 8 Thos. H. Miller, Acting Director Roofing gravel...................................................... 9 Yard and playground surfacing............................ 9 Work on manuscript completed June 1955. The Bureau of Mines will Concrete-block manufacture................................ 9 welcome reprinting of this paper, provided the following footnote acknowledgment is made: “Reprinted from Bureau of Mines Chalk, whiting, and whiting substitutes................ 9 Information Circular 7738.” Uses for which chemical properties are most important.................................................................. 9 March 1956 Cement manufacture ........................................... 9 LIMESTONE AND DOLOMITE Lime manufacture ................................................ 9 by Agricultural uses .................................................. 9 Oliver Bowles 1/ Mineral wool......................................................... 9 Chemical and industrial uses............................... 9 Uses of dolomite and high-magnesian CONTENTS limestone............................................................ 10 Distribution of deposits.................................................10 Introduction........................................................................ 2 New England States .............................................. 10 Composition and origin ..................................................... 2 New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania............ 10 Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, West Virginia, North Branches of the industry ................................................... 3 Carolina, and South Carolina ................................ 10 Dimension stone ............................................................... 3 Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Florida.................................................................... 11 Requisite qualities ......................................................... 3 Wisconsin and Michigan........................................ 11 Uses............................................................................... 3 Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky ..................... 11 Structural units............................................................... 3 States Between Mississippi River and Rocky Location of deposits....................................................... 4 Mountain Area ....................................................... 11 Reprinted from Bureau of Mines Information Circular 7738 – Page 1 of 17 Western and Pacific Coast States .........................12 COMPOSITION AND ORIGIN Prospecting and development..................................... 13 Stripping....................................................................... 13 The essential constituent of limestone is calcium carbonate (CaCO ). If the magnesium carbonate Mining methods ........................................................... 13 3 content is small the rock is known as a “high-calcium” Drilling.......................................................................... 14 limestone. If 10 percent or more of magnesium Blasting........................................................................ 14 carbonate is present it is called “magnesian” or Loading........................................................................ 14 “dolomitic” limestone. When the content of magnesium Haulage ....................................................................... 14 carbonate approaches 45 percent it is known as dolomite, which is the double carbonate of calcium and Primary crushing.......................................................... 14 magnesium (CaCO3.MgCO3). The term “limestone” in its Secondary crushing..................................................... 14 broader sense includes dolomite. Fine grinding................................................................ 15 Screening..................................................................... 15 Limestones are named on the basis of their prevailing impurities, provided the impurities are present in Washing....................................................................... 15 considerable quantities. Thus siliceous or cherty Marketing..................................................................... 15 limestones contain considerable quantities of silica; Prices........................................................................... 16 argillaceous limestones contain clay; and ferruginous Royalties...................................................................... 16 limestones contain iron oxides, which make the rock reddish or yellowish. Carbonaceous or bituminous Bibliography..................................................................... 17 limestones contain peat or other organic materials, 1/ Formerly commodity specialist, Branch of Construction and which may make the rock dark gray or black. Chemical Materials, Bureau of Mines. Limestones consist chiefly of calcareous shells of organisms that inhabit oceans and lakes. Countless ILLUSTRATIONS generations of them have lived and died, and their shells have accumulated, sometimes to great depths, on sea Fig. 1. Blocks of dimension limestone turned down ready for and lake floors. Such supplies are supplemented by subdivision........................................................................5 chemically precipitated calcium and magnesium 2. Limestone is scooped from the quarry floor into a 22-ton carbonates. Some deposits consist almost entirely of truck by power shovel at Jones and Laughlin Steel Co. the carbonates and become the sources of pure, high- quarry in West Virginia. ..................................................15 grade limestones. In other places sand, clay, iron oxide, or other detrital material may be mixed or interbedded 3. Electric shovel with 1-1/2-yard bucket, loading limestone into a diesel-powered truck in Barberton, Ohio...............15 with the carbonates in larger or smaller quantities. During later ages beds of sand or clay may have been 4. One of the diesel-powered trucks used for hauling superimposed, and the resulting earth pressure limestone from working faces to shaft in Barberton, gradually consolidated the carbonates and other Ohio................................................................................15 minerals into firm rock. Through long geologic ages of earth adjustment some of the rocks so formed may have been elevated to occupy land areas where they can be INTRODUCTION exploited for commercial use. Limestone, including dolomite, is the most widely used of In most instances the original shells have been so all rocks - nearly 300 million tons annually in the United comminuted by wave action or reduced by pressure and States alone. It occurs in some form in every State and earth movement