Parquet de Versailles is the name given to stone flooring by the Dutch Maximiliano’s Company. The product is reminiscent of weaving and takes up themes in wood.

The planets in our solar system in form of sweets are produced by Rihga Hotel in Osaka. Some of the spheres look like being made of stone.

A „New Product Launch“ will be undertaken at the Xiamen trade fair this year for the first time. It is meant to be a get-together-event where producers and consumers can exchange new ideas.

Stonemasons and stone carvers from Euroe are invited to participate Euopean Stone Festival. In this year, it will take place in Trondheim, Norway from June, 29th to July 1st. The topic for the artists’ works will be „fairy tales”.

The Global Stone Congress will take place from July 16th to 20th in the Portuguese city of Borba in the region of Alentejo. It is an international meeting point for experts of the branch, where the top themes will be discussed. The congress took place in Brazil in 2005, in Italy in 2008 and in Spain in 2010.

Video of the month: hiking tours along steep cliff-side paths – just the thing for people with strong nerves.

The European Cemeteries route plots its path along cemeteries across 20 countries.

Plates made of petrified wood are on sale by British Stonefish Company.

„Building in wood“ was one of the themes at this year’s Big5 seminar program at Dubai’s trade fair. The lecture was held by a representative of the Timber Academy.

A volcano on the ocean floor before the Atlantic island of El Hierro has taken up activity again. A Swiss webpage shows active volcanoes around the world live via live cams.

The Santiago de Chile international airport is being modernised and refurbished. It will also receive an annex building (Spanish) .

BuiltInt Kenya 2012 is a building fair from March 31st to April 2nd in Nairobi.

Clandestine sandstone quarries have been in progress around the Polish town of Łysina in Silesia. The authorities have already threatened to penalize the perpetrators acceding to a press release (Polish). But the towns merely shrug and ask: sandstone, here? We know of nothing of the sort, and if anyone is quarrying sandstone then merely for private use…

Onix Home Accents is the name of a company producing articles for interior design (Spanish).

A magnificent mask made of green serpentinite was found under Teotihuacán’s Sun Pyramid in what is today Mexico (Spanish).

Stonebuild is the name of a new trade fair to take place from June 18th to 21st in the port city of Tiajin in north-east China. Stone was one of a number of themes at the building trade fair there. The fair focuses on Northern China, one of the country’s main growth regions. Organisers are the local trade organisation of the China Stone Association and CCPIT Building Materials Sub-council, already responsible for the Stonetech (Shanghai/Beijing).

„Out of Sight“ is the title of an exhibit showing imaginary mountain-landscapes painted by Tula Telfair. It takes place in the Forum Gallery in New York City until February 11th, 2012.

The Mexican Maya-Cultures are the theme of an exhibit to begin on April 9th in Toronto’s Royal Ontario Museum. The peoples came to fame particularly through their stone temples in the rain forest of Yucatán (Mexico), Honduras and Belize.

Video of the month: lecture on „green“ building with „green“ building material.

(December 2011)

It was in 1576 when Sir Martin Frobisher set sail for the New World – specifically Canada’s Northwest Passage – from whence he returned with a remarkable black stone. Somehow the stone made its way into the hands of one of the other members of the party whose wife, in turn, tossed it into the fire perhaps thinking it was a piece of coal.

In the heat of the fire, the stone began to develop a sparkling gold twinkle….

The excitement must have been boundless because the unknown material must have contained gold – at least according to the then commonly held belief: alchemists contended that the colour of matter was invariably an exact and infallible proof of the matter’s content. Thus: that which glitters golden, is – or must contain substantial portions of – gold.

The stone was submitted to detailed analysis. But there was no clear proof that the stone contained gold. Finally a Venetian expert was called upon. His conclusion: a resounding yes! The reason given in 1577 „Bisogna sapere adulare la natura” (It is necessary to know how to coax nature.) – strange by today’s scientific standards but a reflection of the contemporary philosophy of alchemy.

Practitioners of the science at the time believed that what we consider as dead matter today was actually the home to spirits who – sometimes – wished to remain undiscovered by man. So – it was believed – they concealed the presence of precious metals in mines and mineral samples.

Alchemists were convinced that this was a common occurrence. After all, ancient philosophers and scientists had reported at length on such phenomena. Ancient mineworkers, as legend would have it, discovered a silver-coloured metal, which alchemists heated, distilled and submitted to a variety of procedures – only to discover that the silver sheen would invariably disappear: sure proof that spirits were at work. „Nickel“ was the name given to the fabulous creature, a name which the metal in question carries to this very day.

Similarly, cobalt derives its name from the German Kobold or „Goblin“, as cobalt miners called the ore. Early attempts to derive copper or nickel from the ore simply yielded cobalt oxide with the undesired side-effect of emitting toxic and volatile arsenic oxide during the process.

But experienced alchemists, it was contended, were able to outsmart the spirits, as the Venetian expert certified.

Frobisher was quick to organize another expedition from Dartford to Canada. Over 1000 t of ore were retrieved and brought back safely to England.

An estimated 4 million British Pound Sterling (~ 4,67 million €, ~ 6,32 million US-$) by today’s standard were invested – yielding nothing but a mass of gneiss. Some of the stones were used to build the wall in 1579 as depicted in our photo.

Stone-Ideas.com wishes its readers better luck and a happy new year 2012.

Blog „Geology Writer“ by David B. Williams

Williams’ latest project is a book on cairns.

Marble plates and bowls by Spanish InMármol Company (Spanish).

The City of the Dead in Peru’s Marcahuamachuco enjoy the protection of a Global Heritage Fund’s concept to open it for visitors while protecting it from damage. The secret site stems from sometime between 700 and 300 BC and is often endearingly referred to as Machu Picchu of the North. It can be reached by road from Trujillo. Machu Picchus’s fantastic stonemasonry work is convincingly show in a photo stream. Clicking the thumbnail pictures turns the pages of the album.

Millstones were the theme at a scientific congress in Norway.

More than 55% of deceased Germans chose cremation in their last will according to a study by the consumer organization Aeternitas. 15 years ago cremation was preferred by an estimated 15% of the population (German).

Vietnam is enjoying a strong economic development. A seminar organized by IMM Carrara gives insight into investment opportunities (Italian).

The Golan-Hights has its own Stonehenge, a gigantic stone circle by Rujm al-Hiri (Rogem Hiri). According to a new theory examining the four subset circles, these were not a calendar but a burial site for an ancient culture. 42,000 tons of basalt stone were deposited there by man. It is thought that the rings were up to 10 m high at the time of completion.

Latest news: The end of the world at December 21st or 23rd, 2012 which some people are reading in Maya Hieroglyphs inscribed in stone and brick findings, will not happen. The Mexican Instituto Nacional de Antropologia e Historia wipes away those ideas: the data in the Maya calender refer to cycles every 394 years respectively 52 years – at the end of such cycles only people from the modern Western civilizations expect special events. And: News about Britain’s Stonehenge.

Onyx Art is the name of a Mexican company producing interior design elements (Spanish).

Samara is the sixth-largest city in Russia and is situated at the junction of the Wolga and Samara. It will soon also be the site of a new urban district in the city centre. US-American architects BDP won the planning competition.

Berlin is the home of Germany’s the new Federal Ministry of the Interior for which construction is to begin this year (German).

Protective coating for natural stone to stave off unwanted weathering and restore the original state after damage is the aim of the project „Regenera“ (Spanish) under the leadership of Spanish-based Tino Stone Group, the Centro Tecnológico Andaluz de la Piedra (CTAP) and the University of Cadiz.

Video of the month: how man crafted rectangular stones for masonry work from soapstone in ancient times is described in a blog by a Norwegian scientist by Per Storemyr. Accompanying video (Norwegian).

Unique is a fitting attribute for the new Swedish stone-databank accessible online: it includes the GPS-coordinates of all quarries. The Databank can be accessed by choosing a type of stone depicted as thumbnail examples. From there a PDF opens up showing the location in GPS-coordinates and a large photo of the stone.

„After Cosmati“ is the title of a stone installation by John Maine to be shown until December, 18th, in the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

What will the skyscraper of the 21st century look like? is the question asked by the architectural magazine eVolo in an international competition for architects, designers and students. Early-bird registration costs 65.00 US-$.

Great masses of toxic gas from volcanic eruptions in Siberia lead to the untimely death of 95% of marine life and 75% of terrestrial fauna 250 million years ago according to the magazine Nature fittingly mirrored in London’s Tate Britain showing apocalyptic 19th century motifs by John Martins including his famous „The destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum“.

Gifts in stone by Graniti Buzzini of Switzerland (Italian).

Geological information on Carrara marble among others in form of maps are compiled in a webpage (Italian/English).

The Construmat building fair of Barcelona entertained a section dedicated to natural stone, Stonemat, for the first time this year. The fair is scheduled to take place as Construmat China in Beijing (July 11th to 13th) next year.

The exact place of moonstone recovery by the Apollo missions can be reconstructed even more exactly in future. The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) recently took pictures form a distance of merely 21 km altitude from the moon’s surface and transmitted them back to Earth.

A Caldia Cube-exhibit in London’s Stone Theatre shows Caldia-marble objects designed by architects and designers until November 20th.

Video of the month: singing stone, Professor Klaus Feßmann (1, 2).

Everyday products in slate by Greaves Welsh Slate and Inigo Jones Slateworks.

Stone wedges found near Turkana Lake prove that mankind crafted tools with a high degree of skill as early as 1.76 million years ago. Formerly it was assumed that Ethiopian and Indian examples dating back some 300,00 years were the early examples to be found according to scientist as published in the science magazine Nature.

Ultrasound to analyze material faults in massive wood are of substantial assistance in building windows or pianos. The ultrasound waves cause increased heat along fissures, which in turn can be made visible by filtering (German)

Hotel in the cliffs can be found on the Unusual Hotels site.

A stone door knocker is sold by Chiasso.

The Aga Khan Architecture Awards are currently accepting submissions. These successfully address the needs and aspirations of societies in which Muslims have a significant presence. The purse is 500,000 US-$.  

Architects and designers are called upon to develop plans improved appearance of the Mall in Washington D.C. (1, 2).

Gold and precious metals substantially originate from meteorites according to a scientist as published in the science magazine Nature. This would explain why the elements did not sink into the earth’s interior in the early stages of geological evolution as could be expected due to the high density.

Video of the month: Tumbling stone to hasten aging artificially. Youtube shows freaks emulating the process with the aid of washing machines.