Sydney sandstone

The Hawkesbury Sandstone (English: Hawkesbury Sandstone ) forms both a stratigraphic formation in Australia as well as a name designation for a type of sandstone in the Sydney area in New South Wales. This rock was formed in Triassic in a freshwater lake 200 million years ago. In Sydney, this sandstone is also known as Sydney Sandstone. Named is Hawkesbury Sandstone after the Hawkesbury River, which flows north of Sydney.

Geology

This sandstone is located in the Sydney basin, before 290-200 million years ago from sediments and sedimentary rocks as part of the larger sedimentary basin, the Sydney - Gunnedah - Bowen Basin, was born. The Sydney Basin extends from Newcastle in the north to Durras Lake at Batemans Bay in the south. From Durras Lake it reaches up to Ulan near Mudgee, and west to the Blue Mountains. The northern boundary runs along the Liverpool Range to by Muswellbrook. Partially joined the crevices of the sandstone layers and lava solidified into volcanic rock. The layers of the Hawkesbury Sandstone are up to 200 meters thick.

There is a freshwater sandstone.

Rock description

The Hawkesbury sandstone is yellow to brown in color and fine to medium grained. The quartz content is different depending on the rock layer, it can be up to 95 percent, feldspar hardly occurs and there were found up to 10 percent limestone and clay as a binder in this rock. Iron oxides (some 1-3 %) color the rock and it is when it is sawed against the camp, in layers, different in its color depending on the concentration of iron oxide. The various rings hot Liesegangsche rings and are believed to have originated when the sediment was not yet fully established, water could still flow through the minerals and thereby took the iron oxides. The Hawkesbury sandstone lenticular and larger Toneinlagerungen are included to coatings. In the clay layers are found fossilized plants, fish and amphibious animals.

Type sandstone

The Hawkesbury sandstone is very resistant to weathering at high quartz content. The Sydney rock engravings in Ku-ring -gai Chase National Park are jahrtausendealt and preserved to this day. This is due to that this sandstone has a high quartz content and therefore is highly resistant to wear.

Use

Sydney is built on the layers of the Hawkesbury Sandstone and the construction of the Sydney Harbour Tunnel, the sandstone layer had to be pierced.

Many buildings from the Victorian era in Sydney consist of Hawkesbury sandstone, such as the City Town Hall, The Queen Victoria Building, the University of Sydney and today's Radisson Plaza Hotel Sydney, which was a bank building once.

In Sydney, the foundation was built from 1790 to to 1890, especially with this sandstone from the time, which was broken in the immediate vicinity of the building to be built. Examples of these works are in Sydney today can still be seen on the Rocks. There, not only the first houses were built in Sydney, but also broken the blocks used for this purpose. The historic quarries were opened in the immediate vicinity of the houses were of the convicts name depending on how there work designed, for example, hellhole, purgatory and paradise. The most qualitative sandstone quarry was broken in " Paradise ". From 1850 to the 1900s, the building blocks for the most important buildings in the Sydney Pyrmont district two kilometers away were broken up into about 50 quarries. From 1870 to have been employed in the quarries and in building construction Sydney 300 masons, and stonemasons.

In the 1950's this sandstone was still well received by architects and builders in both the application in the home and church, but also in garden design. In the 1960s and 1970s, many houses have been torn from this sandstone. After that, the population began to reflect on the listed building and it has been trying to get those buildings or. feeding of use. This sandstone is still processed. He enjoys because of its interesting texture of a certain demand and is broken in some quarries near Sydney.

Queen Victoria Building in Sydney

State Library of New South Wales in Sydney

Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney