Economics
Because it is brittle, the use of Carboniferous Limestone for building stone tends to be limited to those areas where it is the most abundantly available rock. However it is extensively quarried for other purposes:
- It is crushed for roadstone and aggregate wherever it outcrops, particularly in the Mendips and north Wales.
- It is burned for lime in many places. In certain places (e.g. Tunstead in the Peak District, and Horton in Ribblesdale in the Pennines), it is sufficiently pure for production of chemical-grade lime.
- It is used in cement manufacture at plants in England (4), Wales (2), Scotland (1) and Ireland (4).
- In ground form, it is used for power industry flue-gas desulphurisation.
- In many places it is metalliferous, and has yielded lead (in the Peak District and Weardale), and copper (in North Wales, where important Bronze Age mines are to be found).
- It was important in the early Industrial Revolution when, following the inventions of Abraham Darby, it was used in combination with nearby coal and ironstone from the Coal Measures in the iron industry.
Read more about this topic: Carboniferous Limestone
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