Help me identify this gravel

[treetops]

I’m needing more and just not sure what it is!

Some sort of cobble…

Thanks

[Super Sonic]

Looks like beach pebbles, but it's hard to tell with nothing to give a sense of scale. You need to post a picture with a ruler or coin or something.

[Tisy]

Looks like dove grey pebbles 8-16mm. Just take a few empty buckets and spade to the edge of your local river and fill your boots.

Edited by Tisy on Saturday 29th March 15:54

[treetops]

Super Sonic said:

Looks like beach pebbles, but it's hard to tell with nothing to give a sense of scale. You need to post a picture with a ruler or coin or something.

Here we go…

[Tisy]

"Help me identify this gravel"

That's not gravel when most of them are 30mm in length! Just small beach / river pebbles as I stated above.

[Super Sonic]

Tisy said:

"Help me identify this gravel"

That's not gravel when most of them are 30mm in length! Just small beach / river pebbles as I stated above.

Was me that said beach pebbles, before you identified them as 8-16 mm!

[Tisy]

Super Sonic said:

Was me that said beach pebbles, before you identified them as 8-16 mm!

And I said dove grey which is what they are sold as in dumpy bags (including the non-grey ones) but you didn't so my post was useful-er than yours. And before he got out his tape measure they could have neen 8-16mm.

[hidetheelephants]

30-50mm pebbles. There's some choice of colour.

Abstracting from your local river may or may not be legal. I forget whether it is from the sea shore but plenty of people do it.

Edited by hidetheelephants on Saturday 29th March 19:04

[Super Sonic]

Tisy said:

Looks like dove grey pebbles 8-16mm. Just take a few empty buckets and spade to the edge of your local river and fill your boots.

also

Tidy said:

And I said dove grey which is what they are sold as in dumpy bags (including the non-grey ones) but you didn't so my post was useful-er than yours. tongue out And before he got out his tape measure they could have neen 8-16mm.

Edited by Tisy on Saturday 29th March 15:54

Sold in dumpy bags from the edge of your local river are they?

Edited by Super Sonic on Saturday 29th March 19:04

[Tisy]

Super Sonic said:

Sold in dumpy bags from the edge of your local river are they?

Edited by Super Sonic on Saturday 29th March 19:04

Obviously not. But there will be any size you want there.

[treetops]

Thanks everyone - that’s been super helpful!

[m3jappa]

I am 99% certain that they would be referred to as 40mm Scottish cobbles around here.

[DonkeyApple]

treetops said:

I’m needing more and just not sure what it is!

Some sort of cobble…

Thanks

It's a shingle. It looks a bit rough still which may imply that it's a river deposit rather than beach as beach deposits do tend to be more polished.

Looks to contain mostly limestone and a few quartz pebbles. The red stones may be the best clue as you can see large plagioclase crystals in them which means it's a granite and pink granite or porphyritic which makes you think Scotland. But there are not many of them in the mix. Scotland isn't heavy in limestone though. Best guess would be that the porphyritic stones are from glacial transport and the limestone from the north or middle of England but that's a guess from a photo.

Better way (if you have a fair amount at your property so not just an ornamental bag that could have come from anywhere) is to work on the logical assumption that the previous owner used a local company. It's not logical to transport gravel huge distances so every area has its own unique types that get delivered, generally. So use Google to find all the aggregates suppliers within say 40 miles and check their websites to see if you get lucky and find a match.

[treetops]

Thanks I’m in Scotland and we’ve got a lot of these pebbles. I’ve got a sample and will reach out to local aggregate suppliers and see what happens.

[DonkeyApple]

treetops said:

Thanks I’m in Scotland and we’ve got a lot of these pebbles. I’ve got a sample and will reach out to local aggregate suppliers and see what happens.

That would make sense. In extremely crude terms, if the source were in or near the highlands then you'd not expect to see much limestone and you'd expect there to be lots more colour coming from metamorphic stones such as the gneisses that you see on the pebble beaches of the Western coast and Hebrides. And you'd expect to see much more pink granite. The limestone in Scotland is mostly south of Glasgow in a band from east to west down to the Lake District. Making a very random guess this may have originated from around the borders.

When speaking to local aggregate suppliers they will probably have these down as ornamental and be calling them Scottish pebbles/shingle/cobbles due to the classic red porphyritic granite.