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| Titel |
Lithotheque of Czech historical carbonate stones: the present state of investigation |
| VerfasserIn |
Aneta Stastna, Richard Prikryl |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2011
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 13 (2011) |
| Datensatznummer |
250048009
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The concurrent effort to establish a sufficient database of analytical data for complete natural
stone collections is going on in most European countries. During the past decades,
this problem has also been encountered in the Czech Republic, which initiated an
interdisciplinary research project entitled ‘Lithotheque of Czech historical dimension stones’.
This project includes: (a) literature research (published and unpublished data, data from
archives), (b) fieldwork (location and description of historic quarries, stone sampling), (c)
laboratory studies (mineralogical-petrographic, geochemical, physical, mechanical, and
technical properties testing), (d) lithotheque preparation (thin sections, sawn and polished
stone slabs, large blocks), and (e) compilation in printed form of the ‘Atlas of Dimension
Stones’ (with all available data for each stone type). The inventory of historic quarries
follows a defined structure including basic quarry data, petrographic descriptions and
name of the rock, analytical data, technical properties, deposit details, exploitation
and historical use. The ‘Atlas of Dimension Stones’ is intended to be a tool for
stone provenance assessment and for the education of geologists, restorers, and
architects.
Czech Republic shows extensive carbonate stone deposits that have been quarried for
decorative purposes since Neolithic times. Up until now, around fifty marble quarries from
six areas of investigation (Lugicum, Moravian-Silesian Domain, Kutná Hora-Svratka
Crystalline Complex, Moldanubian Zone, SedlÄany-Krásná Hora Metamorphic
‘Islet’ and Krušné Hory Crystalline Complex) located in the Bohemian Massif
were examined, and correlated with three marble artefacts from the relevant Czech
monuments (the Prague Castle, the Pernštejn Castle, and the Plague Pillar in Brno).
Further part of the carbonate stone database is composed of limestone samples of
the Barrandian area and clayey-calcareous silicites of the Bohemian Cretaceous
Basin.
Similarity in macroscopic characteristics and overall mineralogical compositions of
natural stones do not allow the correct sourcing of historical artefacts without use of more
complex analytical approach. This study tries to distinguish carbonate stones (marbles,
limestones and clayey-calcareous silicites) and some of their selected artefacts according to
the traditional fingerprinting methods i.e. qualitative and quantitative petrography
(optical and electron microscopy, petrographic image analysis, X-ray diffraction),
cathodoluminescence and stable isotope geochemistry of carbonates. The highly variable
character of local natural stones is mainly shown in their micro-fabric (type and
degree of metamorphic involvement) and mineralogical composition (presence
of non-carbonate phases). Additional techniques such as mass specific magnetic
susceptibility measurement of the whole rock and Raman microspectrometry of the
graphitic marbles were shown to be very useful for distinguishing marbles, which
include accessory minerals with different magnetic characteristics and carbonaceous
matter transformed, due to the various degrees of metamorphism, respectively. |
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