Calcite

specimen number:
9302293

location:
Eide, More og Romsdal, Norway

description:
A loose glassy crystal of colorless gemmy calcite crystals. There are no points of attachment, complete all around, in great condition.

The Eide mining and quarrying region, located on the Romsdal Peninsula within Hustadvika Municipality, More og Romsdal County, Norway, is an important European source of high-purity industrial limestone and marble. Geologically, the area occupies a portion of the Western Gneiss Region, a deeply exhumed metamorphic terrain heavily impacted by the Caledonian Orogeny, where thick sequences of Neoproterozoic carbonate rocks were recrystallized into dense, high-grade calcite marble and limestone flanked by eclogite and amphibolite complexes. Commercial surface quarrying for construction stone and agricultural lime in the district began during the late nineteenth century, driven by the regional abundance of the raw material. Industrial-scale operations expanded significantly in 1938 with the development of the Nas limestone and marble mine, which transitioned from open quarries to a subterranean room-and-pillar operation in 1987 to harvest calcite primarily for paper production and building materials. Underground extraction has continued uninterrupted into the twenty-first century, processing hundreds of thousands of tons of material annually while concurrently utilizing portions of the inactive, flooded lower levels of the vast multi-level cave network as a localized ecotourism attraction.

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