Castione marble comes in two different forms.
The first is a coarse-grained marble, white-grey in colour with streaks or almost pure white.
The second is a fine-grained limestone, dark in colour with alternating layers of grey-white, grey-green and even brown. The latter also has large red-brown garnet crystals.
Castione marble is no longer quarried for economic reasons.
Composition of white Castione: calcite, dark brown-gold mica (phlogopite) and greenish diopside.
Composition of black Castione: calcite, quartz, plagioclase, scapolite, biotite, diopside and reddish-brown garnet.
It is a very solid rock that is generally resistant to weathering. However, its high calcite content does not make it resistant to acids.
Main source of description
Material-Archiv. (2024). Castione-Marmor.
Original source of characteristic values
