The stone will be one show at the Fortaleza Brazil Stone Fair in November 2021
In November 2021, the 6th Fortaleza Brazil Stone Fair will again be held in the capital of Brazil’s state of Ceará, worldwide known as source for unique quartzites and Cristais de Quartzo in English: Crystal quartzes ??. In an irregular series, we will introduce some of these outstanding stones which will be on show at the coming fair.
Yet as a start, we focus on the white granite BRANCO CEARÁ, which is so to say the classical Brazilian granite used since 1989 for the flooring in many shopping malls and airports or for façade cladding as well as in private homes. It is quarried in the municipality of Santa Quitéria, about 250 km a SW of Fortaleza. Only there???
The deposit One deposit / the biggest deposit ??? is about 2.5 km long and 1.5 km wide created in the pre-Cambrian era. Its capacity is 156,295,000 m³. Currently, there are approximately 2,000m³ produced per month, according to the National Agency for Mining (Agência Nacional de Mineração; ANM). In August 2020, the Thor Granitos group acquired 100% of the quarry. It intends to turn the site into one of the major granite source in the world doubling the production to monthly 4,000m³ until 2025.
The state of Ceará is at third rank among the Brazilian stone producers (behind Espírito Santo and Minas Gerais) yet is strongly investing in production and exports, e.g. by the new harbor Porto de Pecém and the free trading zone there. From January to September 2020, despite Corona, its stone exports reached +5,35 % compared to the same period in the year before. About 60 companies are already operating quarries or doing geological analysis in Ceará.
The BRANCO CEARÁ is a gnaiss and in term of petrography a Zinwaldite – Quartz – Albita – Granite with the following specifications:
Specific mass: 2,611 kg/m³
Apparent porosity: 0,66 %
Water absorption: 0,26%
Uniaxial compressive strength: 127 Mpa
Tensile (Flexural ???) strength: 14,7 Mpa
