At the EuroSkills 2023 in Gdansk, stonemasons were again among the participants. The 1st price went to Marlena Senne from Kuster company in Bäch, Switzerland, two 2nd places were awarded to Adrien Nicolas (Lycée Thomas Pesquet de Coutances, France) and Johannes Reiter (Kalläwe Marmor, Germany). It was the 8th edition of this Europe-wide vocational competition and the largest such education and skills event on the continent. The next WorldSkills, or EuroSkills, respectively, will be held in Lyon, Herning (Denmark), Shanghai and Düsseldorf (co-organized by Germany and Luxembourg) (1, 2).

The 2023 “Marble“ fair in Izmir (April 26 – 29) had 79,153 visitors in total, from which 9,056 (2019: 13,214) came from 140 foreign countries. The total number of exhibitors was 1015, among them 135 representing foreign companies. The fairground area was 150,000 m². It will have 20,000 m² more in 2024, the mayor of Izmir city announced, according to a report in Marble Trend magazine.

The Belgian organization Embuild Plus held its natural stone rally (Rallye de la pierre naturelle) for the 2nd time on September 08, 2023. The route with oldtimers began in the Hainaut quarry and ended with a factory tour at Brachot in Deinze (French).

A web page has crystal shape galleries.

The ticket office and the exhibitors‘ catalog of the Cersaie fair for ceramic tile and bathroom furnishings (September 25 – 29, 2023) in Bologna are now online.

The CER Magazine of the Italian Confindustria Ceramica association is now online (# 63, September 2023).

The Salone del Mobile in Milan, the world’s leading furniture and furnishings fair, has obtained the ISO 20121 certification for sustainable events management.

A database offers many ways for meteorite research. It contains more than 72,000 names of such celestial bodies.

Researchers have analyzed the shifting patterns of entire dune fields on Earth and Mars, as seen from orbit, and found a direct signature of recent environmental change. This new tool can also be applied to Titan, and Venus.

The Cambodian government has suspended a planned marble mine inside a wildlife sanctuary approved months earlier.

The story of antique Portara whose ruins still stand on the islet of Palatia on Naxos is told on a webpage.

Due to a crack in a massive granite cliff, a popular rock climbing area in Yosemite National Park has been closed.
 

Video of the Month: The Carrara marble quarries and other places in Italy are on stage “Of Sea and Stone“ commissioned by Rockport High School. While on tour, the RHS Music students had the privilege of making music in the mountains of the quarries of Carrara, where Michelangelo worked. The text sung by the Chorus is from a poem by Michelangelo entitled “On the Brink of Death.”

(15.09.2023, USA: 09.15.2023)