Skiddaw Slate (as opposed to Honister slate which has a green hue) and is used for building, in the Lake District. The traditional buildings of Keswick and other settlements are almost entirely of Skiddaw slate. The slate is also used for making souvenirs, monuments, ornaments etc. Smaller fragments are used for gravels or for ornamental pathways. Skiddaw Slate Skiddaw slate is an early Ordovician metamorphosed sedimentary rock, as first identified on the slopes of Skiddaw in the English Lake District. The base of this series is unknown. The thickness could, therefore, amount to several thousand feet of sediment. These sediments were formed
Slate industry in Spain product depends largely on the tectonic environment, the source of the sedimentary material, and the physical/chemical conditions prevalent during the sedimentation process. As the sedimentary deposits were compacted, water was squeezed out, hence turning clay minerals into mica, and then solid mudstone. The subsequent mountain building compaction which occurred over the next few million years resulted in an even stronger rearrangement and planar orientation of the minerals. This means that in true slate the cleavage plane is very different from the original bedding plane and led to the well developed cleavage for which the region is famous. The Galician slate