Smart quarrying: A real-time method for grade determination in dimension stone

The extraction of dimension stone does not have a quantitative real-time grade assessment equivalent to that of metallic ore mining, making it inefficient for resource utilization and production planning. In this paper, we propose a method that establishes an operational grade for dimension stone through intrinsic (color quality, integrity) and structural (discontinuity) characteristics. By conducting a case study over a year at a marble quarry, we show that the systematic mapping of these variables in 205 large blocks of dimension stone is possible for real-time grade assessment. Notably, the analysis of the gathered discontinuity information shows that the coordination of extraction progress with the prevailing orientation of joints maximizes recoverable yield and minimizes waste. The application of this approach, which improved the cutting direction based on the gathered information, clearly showed that it has improved the speed of operation and is expected to improve the productivity of extraction in the studied bench of dimension stone.