List of types of limestone

Limestone deposits listed by location
This list is incomplete; you can help by adding missing items. (January 2014)
Portland Admiralty Roach from a quarry face on the Isle of Portland, Dorset, England.

This article lists types of limestone arranged according to generic type and location.

Generic limestone categories

Coquina from Florida.

This section is a list of generic types of limestone.

  • Bituminous limestone
  • Carboniferous Limestone – Limestone deposited during the Dinantian Epoch of the Carboniferous Period
  • Coquina – Sedimentary rock that is composed mostly of fragments of shells
  • Coral rag – Limestone composed of ancient coral reef material
  • Chalk – Soft carbonate rock
  • Fossiliferous limestone – Limestone containing fossils
  • Lithographic limestone – Type of limestone with hard fine grain
  • Marble – Metamorphic limestone
  • Oolite – Sedimentary rock formed from ooids
  • Rag-stone – Work done with stones that are quarried in thin pieces
  • Shelly limestone – Limestone containing many fossils
  • Travertine – Form of limestone deposited by mineral springs
  • Tufa – Porous limestone rock formed when carbonate minerals precipitate out of ambient temperature water


The following sections include both formal stratigraphic unit names and less formal designations, although are these are not differentiated.

Africa

Egypt

Asia

Meleke in the Gerofit Formation (Turonian) near Makhtesh Ramon, southern Israel.

India

Israel (West Bank)

  • Meleke – limestonePages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallbackPages displaying short descriptions with no spaces
  • Jerusalem stone – Type of pale building stone

Europe

Portland Stone quarry on the Isle of Portland, Dorset.
Transgression of the Paleogene sediments over the Wetterstein Limestone of the Silicic Superunit, Western Carpathians, Slovakia.
Gibraltar limestone: North face of Rock of Gibraltar.

Austria

  • Wetterstein limestone – Regional geologic formation in the Northern Limestone Alps and Western CarpathiansPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

Belgium

Croatia

France

  • Caen Stone – Limestone quarried near Caen, France
  • Lutetian limestone – Type of limestone from Paris, or "Paris stone" (city buildings are widely faced with it)
    • Saint-Maximin – commune in Oise, FrancePages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback, or Oise, limestone (variety of Lutetian)
  • Pierre de Jaumont
  • Tuffeau stone – limestone rock mined in FrancePages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback, in the Loire Valley

Germany

  • Solnhofen limestone – Geological formation preserving rare fossils in Germany
  • Wetterstein limestone – Regional geologic formation in the Northern Limestone Alps and Western CarpathiansPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets

Gibraltar

Ireland

  • Kilkenny marble, not a "true marble"; fossiliferous Carboniferous limestone.

Italy

United Kingdom

England:

Scotland:

Wales:

North America

Quarried block of pink Tennessee "marble"
Blue Rock, a Tonoloway Limestone "fin", in West Virginia, USA.

United States

Canada

  • Eramosa marble – Stratigraphic unit of the Lockport FormationPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets (not a "true marble"; bituminous dolomite)
  • Ostracod Beds – Stratigraphic Group in Western CanadaPages displaying short descriptions of redirect targets (also known as the "Ostracod Limestone")
  • Tyndall stone – Trademark of limestone from Canada

Oceania

Australia

  • Tamala Limestone – Unconsolidated to strongly lithified calcarenite with calcrete/kankar soils; aeolian. Locally quartzose, feldspathic, or heavy-mineral-bearing. Located in Western AustraliaPages displaying wikidata descriptions as a fallback

New Zealand

  • Oamaru stone — Hard, compact bryozoan limestone. Granular and creamy white, it usually contains traces of alumina, iron oxide, and silica.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Limestone.
  • Pivko, D. (2003) Natural stones in Earth’s history. Acta Geologica Universitatis Comenianae. vol. 58, pp. 73–86.