Marble Gravestones Below Ground Deterioration

Marble is a durable stone with small porosity which is why it is often used for gravestones and memorials as well as architecture.

Marble gravestones below ground deterioration.

One piece tablets are monolithic and are installed is setting them partially underground. A dry brush can damage the gravestone by removing the upper layers of the stone causing it to deteriorate faster or by opening small holes or pores for future biological growth. This marble gravestone at the brick street cemetery london on from 1867 has been repaired in several places and shows evidence of black staining photo by author 2018. Flat grave markers are particularly susceptible to damage from dirt soil and mud.

Dirt that penetrates into the pores of the stone can cause a dingy appearance. The above ground section of stone which we normally see may be only one half of the gravestone total size. Certain conditions salt hydrocarbon and sulfur dioxide pollution contribute to the decomposition of the calcite structure of marble and allow it to be eroded rather rapidly. Marble is commonly used for sculpture and as a building material.

It can also lead to staining. Today roberts gravestone lies flat on the ground one of many that have been damaged and worn by time and neglect in dodge burial ground a secluded cemetery in the woods off dodge street in. This is why the old gravestones of the midwest are barely legible because acid rain created by factory pollution has dissolved a lot of the calcite in the limestone and marble gravestones. Constantly dip your brush in a bucket of water or better allow a water hose to run on the stone as you brush.

Unfortunately this is why many of those old marble memorials are nearly unreadable today while granite memorials from the same time are easily read and show almost no deterioration. Olive oil whale oil turpentine and wax represent just a few of the liquids applied to masonry in a mostly vain effort to inhibit the future deterioration of stone. Deterioration comes from simply from weathering rain snow wind. Marble dominated the north american grave scene through the 19th century with their clear white faces gleaming throughout cemeteries and burial grounds.

Marble is a metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals most commonly calcite or dolomite marble is typically not foliated although there are exceptions in geology the term marble refers to metamorphosed limestone but its use in stonemasonry more broadly encompasses unmetamorphosed limestone. Remember less abrasion on the stone surface is best.