The Geological parameters effecting the marble block production in the marble quarries of Muğla region

VII ABSTRACT Muğla province has become an important marble production and working centre in parallel to the development in the marble industry in 1980' s in Turkey. There are large number of block marble producing and abandoned quarries and active marble factories in the area. In the first stage of this study which is on the influence of geological parameters on the block marble production of the Muğla area marbles, the marble producing quarries located at different stratigraphic levels are plotted on 1/100.000 scale map and their distribution is mapped. The selected marble quarries for detailed structure area mapped at 1/100 scale, after their stratigraphic position and detailed discontinuity maps of the quarry benches were mapped at 1/5000 scale and primary and secondary geological parameters effecting the quality of the block marble efficiency on the these selected quarries are identified. Tests were made on marble samples taken from the selected marble quarries to determine their mineralogy, chemistry and physico-mechanical properties. The relations between the crystal sizes and the mechanical properties and the interrelations between the mechanical properties are also investigated. The block marble data obtained from the selected quarries, are expressed as on percent and cumulative distributions and the mean block sizes are determined. The height, length and width of the marble blocks were studied, and their frequency and cumulative frequency diagrams are plotted. The horizontal and vertical distribution of the discontinuity surfaces were accessed by using the 1/100 scaled detailed discontinuity maps made on selected marble quarry benches. Studies have shown that there is no marked different found between the horizontal and vertical discontinuity spacing.VIII The discontinuity spacing distributions are shown to be expanded by a negative exponential distribution, The mean discontinuity spacing values obtained from this distribution and their arithmetic mean values of the discontinuity data are found to be close to one another. Block size estimations were made using the discontinuity measurements taken from 1/100 scaled detailed discontinuity maps and it is shown that the mean marble block sizes which is to be the produced from the marble quarries can be estimated from the bore hole core size measurements in the quarry sites before marble production started in them.