The slate industry is the industry related to the extraction and processing of slate. Slate is either quarried from a slate quarry or reached by tunneling in a slate mine. Common uses for slate include as a roofing material, a flooring material, gravestones and memorial tablets, and electrical insulation.
Slate mines are found around the world. 90% of Europe's natural slate used for roofing originates from the Slate Industry in Spain.[1] The major slate mining region in the United Kingdom is the Lake district, with Honister slate mine being the last working slate mine, the only producers of the world famous Westmorland greenslate. In the remainder of Continental Europe and the Americas, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Brazil, the east coast of Newfoundland, the Slate Valley of Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia are important producing regions. The Slate Valley area, centering on a town called Granville in the state of New York is one of the places in the world where colored slate (i.e. slate which is not grey or blue) is obtained. (A fuller account is given in the article Slate: section Slate extraction.)
- ^ European Association of Mining Industries website Archived 2010-01-30 at the Wayback Machine retrieved on 26/01/2010