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Post Info TOPIC: Welsh slate


L

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RE: Welsh slate
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Since Roman times, the quality of Welsh slate has made it a premier building material, with top architects still demanding it for prestige projects.
This makes it a candidate for "Global Heritage Stone Resource" status.
North West Wales is recognised as the region producing the best product. It occurs in two strips that straddle a line running through the Llyn Peninsula.
The original sediments in the Bethesda-Nantlle Belt are Cambrian in age - a little over 500 million years old; the Blaenau Ffestiniog belt is slightly younger (Ordovician). Both experienced their metamorphism during tectonic events in the Silurian Period, about 400 million years ago.

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L

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The slate deposits of Wales belong to three geological series: Cambrian, Ordovician and Silurian. The Cambrian deposits run south-west from Conwy to near Criccieth; these deposits were quarried in the Penrhyn and Dinorwig quarries and in the Nantlle Valley. There are smaller outcrops elsewhere, for example on Anglesey. The Ordovician deposits run south-west from Betws-y-Coed to Porthmadog; these were the deposits mined at Blaenau Ffestiniog. There is another band of Ordovician slate further south, running from Llangynnog to Aberdyfi, quarried mainly in the Corris area, with a few outcrops in south-west Wales, notably Pembrokeshire. The Silurian deposits are mainly further east in the Dee valley and around Machynlleth.
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