The great structures of ancient Egypt and Greece and the roads built by the Romans show the mankind has been skilled in the use of dimensional stone for thousands of years. Dimensional stone is defined as blocks of stone or slabs of such materials as limestone, granite, marble, sandstone and travertine.

These natural materials are found in great abundance all over the world and are extracted from the ground in mines called quarries.

One of the earliest evidences of building with quarried stone was the construction of Great Pyramids in Egypt more than 4,500 years ago. Blocks of limestone weighing as much as 16 tons were quarried and transported lon distances to the pyramid sites.

All three major types of rock are quarried; igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary. The most common form of igneous rock is granite. Marble, quartzite and slate are the metamorphic rocks most commonly used. Sedimentary rocks include limestone, travertine, sandstone and shale.

Marble

Granite

Limestone

Slate

Sandstone

Quartzite