Black-Swedish
Black-Swedish , also known as Black Swede , rarely also called Ebony Black and often abbreviated to SS by stonemasons , is a Swedish natural stone that was quarried at a great number of extraction sites, for example around Växjö , Älmhult , Kristianstad and Västervik . This natural stone was the rock for graves and memorials in Germany until the 1960s. The gangue rock formed about 900 million years ago in the Precambrian .
geology
The occurrence of the Black Swedish originated from the rapid rise of magma in crevices and crevices of the Baltic Shield , which makes up the subsoil of Sweden . Two tectonic plates collided in a fault zone in Skåne in southern Sweden , whereupon cracks formed as a result of volcanic activity, into which magma penetrated, got stuck and quickly cooled down, creating the fine-grained dike rock.
Mineral inventory, rock description and classification
Black Swedish is made up of 40 to 60% dark plagioclase . Hornblende and pyroxene can be up to 40 to 50%. Biotite makes up about 5 to 10% and apatite up to 5%. Iron ores are stored in the rock structure. The composition makes this rock one of the darkest natural stones in the world. Black-Swedish is available in a lighter, visible grain or deep black. In the early 1900s, Black Swedish was broken down into more than 20 different black types in southern Sweden, with the blackest varieties being the most popular.
In Sweden this rock is classified as diabase and by Friedrich Müller as dolerite . Depending on the mineral composition in quarries and locations, it was also known as basalt, dolerite or hyperite. The term diabase, which is common in Sweden, is based on the common name for rock in England, which does not match the use of this word in many countries. Based on the IUGS nomenclature , it is now called microgabbro .
Dismantling and use
Black-Swedish is mined in the Hägghult, Duvhult and Gylsboda and Brännhult quarries, which are located in the Skåne and Småland regions . In the quarry of the Hägghult variety , one of the numerous historical black-Swedish quarries, has been mined since 1899 until today.
Black-Swedish is of great cultural-historical importance in the historical cemeteries in Germany, because this natural stone was used extensively by the wealthy middle class from the 1880s up to the First World War and continued to be preferred afterwards. With the time of industrialization and advancing mechanization, a stone industry emerged that was able to saw, grind and polish this extremely hard and difficult to work natural stone on a large scale. Intricate polished profiles were also made. Tombs made of this stone have been preserved in many historical cemeteries to this day, the great durability of the material is shown by its mostly still very good condition, at most the polished surfaces have become slightly dull after more than 120 years.
Due to its comparable hardness and weather resistance, Black-Swedish was previously incorrectly referred to as granite or syenite , and this also applies to the name still used today for Black-Swedish as black granite . This natural stone was used in Germany primarily for tombs and memorials, writing plates and epitaphs , urns and bowls and was the material used for tombs until the 1960s. Due to its limited spatial occurrence in 10 to 55 meter narrow crevices, economic mining is sometimes difficult and most rough blocks are relatively small in size with numerous cracks. Many quarries are elongated because they follow the natural course of the course . Because of these conditions, Black-Swedish is one of the most expensive natural stones in global trade.
Black-Swedish can only be worked with hand tools with great physical effort, as it is one of the most solid hard stones in the world. He is resistant to frost and aggressions. Its polish is permanent and produces a metallic sheen in sunlight. Since the natural stone is very dense, it creates a metallic sound when hit.
Today Black-Swedish is used mainly in Germany in small quantities for floors or in bathrooms for inlay work or by stone sculptors . Due to the internationalization of the natural stone trade, comparably dark stones from other countries are preferred.
Others
In the post-war novel The Black Obelisk from 1956, Erich Maria Remarque used a black gravestone in black-Swedish in the shape of an obelisk as a symbol of the reaction to which enlightened stonemasons “knock off their water”.
In Lönsboda there is the Hägghult Museum , which houses a historical exhibition about the quarry activity of the Black Swedish and nearby is a sculpture park with artistic works made from this rock.
Photo gallery
Sculpture by Pål Svensson Sprungen ur ( brought out ), Wanås Castle, Sweden
One of the typical historical forms of tombs from Black-Swedish, which were polished on all sides ( Alter Nordfriedhof in Munich )
literature
- Karlfried Fuchs: Natural stones from all over the world, discover, determine, use. 2. Vol. Callwey, Munich 1997. ISBN 3-7667-1267-5
Individual evidence
- ↑ Otto Herrmann: Quarry Industry and Quarry Geology . Berlin 1899, p. 364
- ↑ a b Fuchs: Natursteine , p. 257 (see literature).
- ↑ a b c Friedrich Müller: INSK compact. The international natural stone index for the current market. Sheet 29.1, Ulm (Ebner Verlag) 1997.
- ↑ RW Le Maitre et al .: Igneous Rocks: A Classification and Glossary of Terms. Recommendations of the International Union of Geological Sciences Subcommission on the Systematics of Igneous Rocks . Cambridge University Press 2005. ISBN 0-521-61948-3 , pp. 72-73, 74.
- ↑ Sveriges Stenindustriförbund: Svenskt Stenkartotek . May 2003
- ↑ a b Svarta Bergen: Stenindustrin i Örkeneds församling / Lönsboda / Medlemsskap i föreningen Svarta Bergen . on www.svartabergen.com (Swedish)