Deterioration of the La Tampa Formation (Colombia) limestones

The limestone of the La Tampa Formation is widely used as dimension stone in different urban setting, including facades, floors, and general ornament in the urban architecture in Medellín city. Four com-mercial products are exploited in two stope faces. The stope face 1 produces biosparite limestones, with a good sorting and rounding, cemented by crystalline sparite. The limestone exploited on stope face 2 is biomicrite, with poor sorting and micrite matrix. Deterioration processes such as flaking, black crust, salt ef-florescence, fissures, break out and patch development have been observed on these limestones in the Medellín city, caused by the bad quality of the air and the intrinsic stone properties. Different stages of altera-tion of the rock in the stope-faces, presence of non-carbonated minerals such as quartz and iron oxides, and some characteristics linked to porosity and microfracturing, are the most important factors of deterioration. Capillarity absorption and loss water for evaporation and compressive strength tests show differences among the different stone types.