Optimización de la producción de áridos procedentes de canteras con frentes complejosCantera de Touro, A Coruña (España)

Abstract

Touro (A Coruña) is a quarry where amphibolite and schist are exploited as crushed aggregates. These materials formed in a complex metamorphic system and it is difficult to classify and separate them. For this reason, affordable techniques that can be used in quarry faces and in simple laboratories were searched to identify and characterize the stone materials. This characterization will help to evaluate “in situ” the quality of stone materials related to future uses. We have developed a petrological classification of the stone materials exploited in Touro. In order to differentiate the quality grades of the Touro quarry lithologies, the classification was completed by studying the stone surface hardness, porosity, expressed as water absorption capacity, and P-wave velocity propagation. On this basis, we concluded that texture, grain size, porosity and surface hardness are valuable “quarry faces” parameters to evaluate the quality of the stone materials. We also propose to separate the materials of the quarry faces by grades of quality to better control the final quarry product.