Dimension stone in the context of "Bluestone"

Mining is the extraction of valuable geological materials and minerals from the surface of the Earth. Mining is required to obtain most materials that cannot be grown through agricultural processes, or feasibly created artificially in a laboratory or factory. Ores recovered by mining include metals, coal, oil shale, gemstones, limestone, chalk, dimension stone, rock salt, potash, gravel, and clay. The ore must be a rock or mineral that contains a valuable constituent, can be extracted or mined and sold for profit. Mining in a wider sense includes extraction of any non-renewable resource such as petroleum, natural gas, or even water.

Modern mining processes involve prospecting for ore bodies, analysis of the profit potential of a proposed mine, extraction of the desired materials, and final reclamation or restoration of the land after the mine is closed. Mining materials are often obtained from ore bodies, lodes, veins, seams, reefs, or placer deposits. The exploitation of these deposits for raw materials is dependent on investment, labor, energy, refining, and transportation cost.

A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to manage their safety risks and reduce their environmental impact.

The word quarry can also include the underground quarrying for stone, such as Bath stone.

Massive-precut stone is a modern stonemasonry method of building with load-bearing stone. Precut stone is a DFMA construction method that uses large machine-cut dimension stone blocks with precisely defined dimensions to rapidly assemble buildings in which stone is used as a major or the sole load-bearing material.

A key technique of massive-precut stone ("MP stone") is to specify precut stone to precise dimensions that match the architect's plan for rapid construction, typically using a crane. The blocks may be numbered so that the masons can follow the plan procedurally. The use of massive stone blocks has several benefits, listed below.

This is a geographical list of natural stone used for decorative purposes in construction and monumental sculpture produced in various countries.

The dimension-stone industry classifies stone based on appearance and hardness as either "granite", "marble" or "slate".

An air hammer, also known as an air chisel, is a pneumatic hand tool used to carve in stone, and to break or cut metal objects apart. It is designed to accept different tools depending on the required function.

The Bushveld Igneous Complex (BIC) is the largest layered igneous intrusion within the Earth's crust. It has been tilted and eroded forming the outcrops around what appears to be the edge of a great geological basin: the Transvaal Basin. It is approximately two billion years old and is divided into four limbs or lobes: northern, eastern, southern and western. It comprises the Rustenburg Layered suite, the Lebowa Granites and the Rooiberg Felsics, that are overlain by the Karoo sediments. The site was first publicised around 1897 by Gustaaf Molengraaff who found the native South African tribes residing in and around the area.

Located in South Africa, the BIC contains some of the richest ore deposits on Earth. It contains the world's largest reserves of platinum-group metals (PGMs) and platinum group elements (PGEs) — platinum, palladium, osmium, iridium, rhodium and ruthenium — along with vast quantities of iron, tin, chromium, titanium and vanadium. These are used in, but not limited to, jewellery, automobiles and electronics. Gabbro or norite is also quarried from parts of the complex and rendered into dimension stone. There have been more than 20 mine operations. There have been studies of potential uranium deposits. The complex is well known for its chromitite reef deposits, particularly the Merensky reef and the UG2 reef. It represents about 75 percent of the world's platinum and about 50 percent of the world's palladium resources. In this respect, the Bushveld complex is unique and one of the most economically significant mineral deposit complexes in the world.