Chalk mining is the

extraction Extraction may refer to: Science and technology Biology and medicine * Comedo extraction, a method of acne treatment * Dental extraction, the surgical removal of a tooth from the mouth Computing and information science * Data extraction, the pro ...

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

from underground and above ground deposits by

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic via ...

. Mined chalk is used mostly to make

cement A cement is a binder, a chemical substance used for construction that sets, hardens, and adheres to other materials to bind them together. Cement is seldom used on its own, but rather to bind sand and gravel ( aggregate) together. Cement mix ...

and

brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

s. Chalk mining was widespread in Britain in the 19th century because of the large amount of construction underway (and the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

). Some chalk mines were extensively large, with passages up to high and wide, their passages taking the form of a Norman arch. Because of chalk's softness, picks and shovels were used to excavate tunnels. Stepped slabs were dug into the chalk, allowing many miners to dig at the same time. Care had to be taken to avoid collapse, and places in which the chalk was soft were simply abandoned. A link was reported in the United Kingdom in 2017 between

sinkhole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are locally also known as ''vrtače'' and shakeholes, and to openi ...

s opening up and the location of former chalk mines. The softness of chalk, as well as rain and erosion, has caused the ground in some places to collapse into the remnants of ancient chalk mines and tunnels.

References

{{Portal bar, Earth sciences

External links

Chalk mines in the UK

See also

References

External links