Spain is responsible for around 90% of the world’s natural slate production.

As you might imagine the industry is a major employer. The quarrying and production of fine quality slate is a long and proud Galician tradition.

Following geological surveys and sample testing, extraction begins only once the purity and quality of the slate has been verified.

Generally, slate is surface quarried. Firstly the ‘overburden’ (unusable material) is removed.

The slate is then sawn from the quarry face in large blocks using diamond beaded steel cutting cables. These large blocks are then transferred to the production centre where they are sorted and sawn along their natural cleavage planes into smaller blocks.

These regular sized blocks are then split into individual slate tiles by skilled craftsmen to a predetermined size and graded for quality and thickness. The finished slates then undergo final inspection and are meticulously packed into crates ready for transportation.

At this point additional information about the type and origins of the slate batch may be included along with information regarding its test results and other characteristics. This is very useful if future matching is required for on-going projects.