CORK RED MARBLE BOWL

Cork limestone is another one of those ‘is it marble or limestone’ stones, like Purbeck ‘marble’ or Frosterley ‘marble’. Marble is basically metamorphosed limestone, limestone that has been subjected to a lot of heat/pressure. This tends to destroy the fossil content and make a harder material. This is basically a hard limestone. well, to be more exact:

The Cork Red Marble is a coarse, graded but poorly sorted, re-sedimented lime-conglomerate, of Caninian age. It occupies a central position within 4,000 feet of Waulsortian limestones. The pebble content of “porcellanous” calcite mudstone—not in reef facies—is set in a matrix of red clay. Mixed biofacies are represented, because of reworking: fragmented large molluscs, indicative of a nourishing reef habitat, contrast forcibly with a mollusc spat-ostracod assemblage as found in the pebbles. The conglomerate was probably formed when back-reef sediments, which included red clay, were elevated and then redeposited, possibly by turbidity currents. Credit: W. E. Nevill, Department of Geology, University College, Cork. HE SHOULD KNOW. 

This is a small fairly delicate piece, I thought it would not survive the making in fact, but it wanted to live. Contact me for delivery costs, but I’d prefer it if you came to get it, or if I delivered when passing, as it needs a soft touch.