Yule Marble`

The localized geology created a marble that is 99.5% pure calcite, with a grain structure that gives a smooth texture, a homogeneous look, and a luminous surface with the whitest known marble in the world.  It is these qualities for which it was selected to clad the exterior of the Lincoln Memorial and a variety of other buildings throughout America in spite of being more expensive than other marbles. The size of the deposits enables large blocks to be quarried like the marble for the Tomb of the Unknowns, with its larger die block that was quarried out. Yule Marble is a metamorphosed limestone found only in the Yule Creek Valley, in the West Elk Mountains of Colorado, 2.8 miles southeast of the town of Marble Colorado. First discovered in 1873, it is quarried today inside a mountain at 9,300 feet above sea level, in contrast to most marble which is quarried from an open pit and at much lower elevations. Yule's quality comes at a high price due to the cost of quarrying in a high-altitude mountain environment. This challenge has caused the industry and the town of Marble to undergo many boom and bust periods since quarrying started in the mid-1880s. Technology advancements in quarrying machinery and transportation have reduced, but not solved, the cost problem that afflicts the operation through the present time. One of the sculpters saved some of the scraps from his work and this is one of the pieces he saved. -DRY pic.- (15 oz.)