Locarno Quarry

This is a pink marble quarry situated in the Gavassi area of Locarno. The quarry is situated within the Kinzigitic diorite series, just like the quarries producing the more famous pink marble of Candoglia, on Lake Maggiore. Here too, the distinctive pink colour is due to the presence of impurities in the form of iron oxides.

Compared with the marble from Val Sorba, the main differences lie not only in the colour but also in the structure of the rock; indeed, Locarno marble has a significantly coarser grain size than the white marble from Rassa and exhibits more fractures. The genesis of the two marbles also differs: whilst both are formed by the burial of the original sediment – a process known as regional metamorphism – but the pink marble is also thought to have been affected by the intrusion of Permian gabbroic bodies from the Ivrea-Verbano Zone, undergoing a contact metamorphic process generated by the heat of the intrusion.