Long before it ends up as a kitchen countertop or a shopping mall floor, natural stone must be pulled from the earth, where it has been nesting for hundreds of millions of years. And given the broad range of stone varieties and quarry formations around the world, it would stand to reason that the methods for extracting stone can be quite different.
The following is a look at selected quarry sites, including the machinery used (other than handling equipment), extraction methods and overall block production.