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    Kris, our team member from Bulgaria, visited a marble quarry and a marble plant.  The videos use Windows Media Player and will take a minute to load with the page.  Click on the arrow at the bottom of the player and the video will start.  Some computers need to have the arrow clicked twice and some connections are slower than others.  Be patient.  The videos are worth it!  The videos can also be downloaded to your computer by right clicking on the link underneath the player and then highlighting "Save link target as".  
    Let's visit the Marble Plant with Kris!

    When I began this project, I didn't know anything about mines or mining.  I didn't know what I could do to help the team with the project but I finally decided to make a trip video.  During our spring holiday, my father, mother, baby brother and I went to Berkovitsa where there was a quarry and a marble plant.  
    The quarry was interesting. There were a lot of marble blocks in many colors like gray, white, and pink.  In my opinion, the pink marble is the most beautiful. It looks as if it is colored artificially but it’s not. Nature has created it so shiny and lovely. 

    From there, we called the president of the marble plant and asked permission to take videos.  He told us it was all right and he would send a worker with us so that everything could be explained.  It was good to have someone go with us because it can be dangerous in plants and factories and they wouldn't want people wandering around alone.
    Marble has to be cut into different sizes depending on what it is going to be used for.  Giant saws are used for this.  There is a lot of dust in the plant and when you watch this video you will see that the saw has water spraying on the blade as it cuts.  This keeps the dust from flying around and it cools off the saw blade. The blade gets very hot as it cuts.
    The steel rope cutters in the video are outside.  These cut the giant pieces of marble into smaller slabs. 

cutting.wmv [1221 KB]

polishing.wmv [1028 KB]

These slabs are cut again into sizes that they need for different products.  The workers know what the marble will be used for before it is ever cut.
    The plant is very noisy because of the cutting machines.  There are a lot of them.  The video above will show you how they cut marble.
    Then the marble is polished so that it has a very nice surface.  Marble is used in lots of things.  It can be used in kitchen countertops that are shiny and smooth.  Marble plants make it this way. 
    The continuous belt machine is used for polishing. [Video on the left.] Many slabs of marble can be fed into the machine.  The pieces are pushed out of the machine and down a conveyor to a place where they are taken off. 

    Sometimes marble is sold in sheets and blocks.  Sometimes it is formed into shapes.  The video on the right shows some of the products of this marble plant.  They sell a lot of their marble to the United States. 
    It was interesting to see the 'fences' made of marble.  These were smooth and would last a long time because marble is very strong.  Marble lasts a long time even if it is out in the weather.
    While we were at the plant, we saw different kinds of vehicles.  The first ones we saw were a big dump truck and a crane. The truck was coming from the quarry. It was loaded with marble blocks. The crane lifted the marble blocks from the truck and moved them to one end of a big yard.

products.wmv [1783 KB]

forklift.wmv [822 KB]

crane.wmv [752 KB]

    The videos above show the crane truck and the forklift.  Both were used to pick up and move pieces of marble.  It is a good thing that they have tools like this because marble is very heavy.
    My trip to the quarry and the marble plant was very interesting and I learned a lot about marble.