Ancient Marble quarry with late Devonian reef

[Manticocerasman]

We have visited an ancient quarry where they used to extract marble, more precisely the marble "Rouge Belge" due to its vivid red collor whe pollished.

The location is the "Beauchateau" quarry in Senzeille, near Phillipville in Belgium.

The Marble is from origin a fossil reef from the late Devonian ( Frasnian ) lots of fossil reefbuilders can be seen in the walls of the quarry.

The exploitation ended in 1950 and is now classified as a monument. The area is freely accesible and offers beautiful walks in the now overgrown area, the scree piles on the side of the quarry also yield a multitude of loose fossils like corals, crinoid stems and brachiopods on the surface. 

 

 

 

An example of the processed Marble "Rouge Belge":

 

[TqB]

Beautiful, and what amazingly neat quarry faces! 

[Tidgy's Dad]

Gorgeous photos of a lovely location. 

Nice fossils too. 

[nala]

Great pictures Kevin,you should have a look ,with your estwing,  to Ferques also

[Fossildude19]

Neat looking place!

Thanks for the virtual tour!  

[ynot]

That is pretty nice, thanks for sharing.