Stones in Alicante, South Spain

[Mart <m_es@xxxxxxxxx>]

Main stone industry in Spain is located around
Novelda, 50 km away from Alicante in the direction of
Madrid. At Algueña, a village 15 km West of Novelda,
you can see from the road a big quarry on top of a
mountain. The firm has prepared downhill a
?supermarket? where everyone can buy blocks. There are
thousands of them, many types, colours and sizes, from
1,20 m cubes up to 1,70 x 1,70 x 2,20 m
parallelepipeds. The rejected ones form pyramid-like
walls surrounding the quarry.

Prices of many sandstones, limestones and marbles you
can see at several sites in Internet, range between ?
100 and 150 per cubic meter = 4 to 6 cents per kg. As
an example, dropping a 5 cubic meter, 14 Ton Rojo
Alicante marble block in your garden in Alicante may
cost you about ? 900 (1 ? aprox = 1 USD).

Usual clients for these blocks are factories that
slice them into tiles or other building elements. The
remaining base of the block that the big saws don´t
cut anymore is a rectangular slab, 15 to 30 cm thick,
1000 to 2500 kg. These are the slabs used to carve
fireplaces, balustrades, etc. The perfect/commercial
slabs keep its price (quarry + transport) while others
such as irregular or differently-coloured marbles,
tough granites, etc, are more than free: I got a good
price for three Amarillo Fosil slabs (a soft-yellow
fossile stone which price is four or five-fold the
other stones´) by taking away a splendid ?bad? 1,75 x
2,30 m x 15 cm snake-like very hard marble and two
others.

Transport is up to you, but it is easy to fetch a 15
Ton truck with a 2,5 Ton crane for ? 30 per hour.
(Apparently the old blacksmiths´ descendants have
moved from the forge to the road, I had to visit four
former forges and travel 30 km before getting my ten
tempered wedges made).

Glad to share my two cents with you. I hope you found
it interesting.

Martin.