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 Parts of France (Anjou, Loire Valley, Ardennes, Brittany, Savoie) and Belgium (Ardennes), Liguria in northern Italy, especially between the town of Lavagna (which means "chalkboard" in Italian) and Fontanabuona valley; Portugal especially around Valongo in the north of the country. Germany's Moselle River region, Hunsrück, Eifel, Westerwald, Thuringia and north Bavaria (with a former mine open as a museum at Fell); and Alta, Norway (actually schist, not a true slate). Some of the slate from Wales and Cumbria is colored slate (non-blue): purple and formerly green in Wales and green in Cumbria. Slate is abundant in Brazil, the world's second-biggest