Shafaq Granite Quarry is one of the oldest quarries located in Ureh village in the Central District of Natanz County, Isfahan Province, Iran, and its highest point is 2264 meters above sea level. Shafaq Granite Quarry was established in early 1994s, and started to work by the Shafaq mining cooperative company in the area of 20.7 kilometers. Overcoming difficulties, it can already reach a significant production level and remarkable successes which will be mentioned later. Now, the white and black granite stones of Natanz are available in Kvp raw form with the minimum annual extraction of 40,000 tons and a daily production of 2000 meters
Granites
Granite is a common type of which is granular and phaneritic in texture. This rock consists mainly of quartz, mica, and feldspar. Occasionally some individual crystals (phenocrysts) are larger than the groundmass, in which case the texture is known as porphyritic. A granitic rock with a porphyritic texture is sometimes known as a porphyry. Granites can be pink to gray in color, depending on their chemistry and mineralogy. By definition, granite is an igneous rock with at least 20% quartz by volume. Granite differs from granodiorite in that at least 35% of the feldspar in granite is alkali feldspar as opposed to plagioclase; it is the alkali feldspar that gives many granites a distinctive pink color. Outcrops of granite tend to form tors and rounded massifs. Granites sometimes occur in circular depressions surrounded by a range of hills, formed by the metamorphic aureole or hornfels. Granite is usually found in the continental plates of the Earth's crust.
Granite is nearly always massive (lacking internal structures), hard and tough, and therefore it has gained widespread use as a construction stone. The average density of granite is between 2.65[1] and 2.75 g/cm3, its compressive strength usually lies above 200 MPa, and its viscosity near STP is 3-6 • 1019 Pa·s.[2] Melting temperature is 1215 - 1260 °C.[3]
