The lar­ge quar­ry on Kin­ne­kul­le is a 40-met­re deep limesto­ne quarry.

The lower lay­ers of limesto­ne were laid down 400 mil­li­on years ago, and the shifting colours of the rock and the beau­ti­ful set­ting have made this quar­ry one of the most popu­lar pla­ces to visit on Kinnekulle.

In the quar­ry you can see a full 40 metres of Kinnekulle’s impres­si­ve limesto­ne stra­ta, con­si­s­ting of Midd­le Ordo­vici­an limesto­ne. In the rock you can see the fos­sils (pet­ri­fi­ed remains) of cep­ha­lo­pods and cru­sta­ce­ans that lived in the sea 400 mil­li­on years ago, when the rock was for­med. The limesto­ne was laid down over a peri­od of around 50 mil­li­on years (1 mm for eve­ry 1000 years). It forms distin­ct lay­ers with dif­fe­rent colours at dif­fe­rent levels, inclu­ding grey, green-grey and red­dish brown. The­se lay­ers vary in qua­li­ty and have been used for dif­fe­rent pur­po­ses. The lower lay­ers of the limesto­ne were quar­ri­ed for making cement and bur­ned to pro­du­ce lime. The remai­ning lay­ers were main­ly pro­ces­sed to make a vari­e­ty of buil­ding materials.

Most of the limesto­ne from the quar­ry was used to manu­factu­re cement between the years 1882 and 1979. A total of around 25 mil­li­on tons of limesto­ne were quar­ri­ed. As cement pro­duc­tion dwind­led and the quar­ry site was resto­red it beca­me clear the­re was a risk that the ground­wa­ter sup­p­ly to the Munkäng­ar­na natu­re reser­ve below would be cut off. To pre­vent this, a pond was cre­a­ted in the base of the quar­ry to sup­p­ly the mea­dows with water. This pond has been stoc­ked with rain­bow trout. A fishing per­mit can be bought from the tou­rist office in Lid­kö­ping and from other outlets.

Hit­ta Hit