The staff over here at Stone World makes use of many forms of transportation in order to bring you the story. Obviously, the commercial airlines love us as very frequent flyers, and we often find ourselves driving to our many destinations. Earlier this year, however, my Publisher Alex Bachrach and I found ourselves taking a less-common mode of transportation -- a private helicopter -- in order to check out Marbrasa's massive quarry for San Gabriel Black granite in the mountains of Brazil. (See the full article in this edition of the Stone World Fabricator E-News).

While the quarry is located in the Espírito Santo State of Brazil -- where the Vitória Stone fair is held -- driving there would have been an all-day affair. So bright and early one morning, we boarded a helicopter at the Vitória Airport, and made our way to the quarry. Viewing the site from the air was a completely different experience, and it helped me appreciate just how large the quarry actually was. During our visit to the site, a total of six different levels of the quarry were being extracted, and a seventh level is expected to be opened within the next two years.

There is a total of 160 workers responsible for extracting blocks and processing them into raw slabs, along with an additional support team of 20 people to provide transportation, meals and administration. I was also impressed with the level of organization within the quarry, as blocks and slabs are meticulously color coded using a sophisticated system that identifies the location of the quarry where the blocks were quarried, along with the date that it was cut and processed. Perhaps most noteworthy for me, I felt that the level of environmental stewardship displayed by Marbrasa was exemplary.