Tākaka marble

Tākaka marble (also known as Kairuru marble) is a marble found in the area around Tākaka in the northern South Island of New Zealand. It comes from number of quarries on Tākaka Hill and the Holyoake Valley nearby,^[1] which form part of the Tākaka Terrane.

Impurities differ from place to place. Each of the quarries producing "Tākaka marble" thus gives a differently coloured marble, ranging from white to pink or grey, and sometimes almost black.^[1] Kairuru marble is a coarse-grained marble which polishes to a lustrous finish.^[2]

Quarrying began at Kairuru (on the southeastern, Nelson side of the hill) in the early 1900s,^[3] and in 1911^[4] was chosen for use in Wellington’s Parliament Buildings.^[1] No blasting was involved in getting the marble.^[2]The heavy marble blocks for the parliament were transported via a tramline down a steep hillside for 10.4 kilometres (6.5 mi) to Mārahau, where they were loaded onto scows, to be taken to Wellington for cutting.^[2] A total of 5000 tonnes of marble had been quarried at Kairuru by the time of completion of the Parliament Buildings in 1922.^[3]

Later, the same quarry provided marble for the Massey Memorial in Wellington, and for decorative features in the Beehive in the 1970s,^[3] and for Christ Church Cathedral in Nelson.^[4]

The new Kairuru quarry, in the Holyoake Valley, had become the main producer by 2005. It produces a coarse, crystalline marble with orange veins and irregular staining,^[1] and is chiefly used for sculpture.^[2]

Ngarua quarry is known for white, orange, grey marble and golden calcite, but much of the marble from this quarry was used to make crushed lime. Pink marble came from a quarry in the lower Riuwaka Valley, while grey marble came from the Marble Mountain Quarry above Kairuru.^[4]