Usually bricks are formed from clay and then fired. But Burkina Faso has a brick quarry where everything is more beautiful and interesting.
Here, bricks are carved from a slope rich in iron and aluminum, giving the landscape an unusual reddish tint.
Laterite is a surface formation rich in iron and aluminum in hot and humid tropical regions, formed by the weathering of rocks. Rocks decompose by precipitation, temperature changes, as a result of chemical and mechanical influences. The seeping water destroys the main minerals of the rocks, increasing the concentration of poorly soluble iron and aluminum compounds.
This is where the laterite bricks are made. However, not only here. There are similar careers in India, for example.
Cut bricks straight out of a reddish hill, rich in iron and aluminum.
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Laterite structures, including parallelepipeds - bricks can be easily cut with a shovel or pickaxe when the material is moist and soft.
When the bricks dry out, they harden. The moisture between the flat clay particles evaporates and the laterite bricks become real hard bricks.
Laterite was first described by Scottish geographer Francis Buchanan-Hamilton when he discovered it in India in 1807. He named the rock "laterite" from the Latin word later, which means "brick."
This quarry in Karabakh, Burkina Faso has existed for almost 30 years. Workers only use picks and shovels to cut future red rock bricks. They then sell them to builders who are building red brick houses in nearby villages.
These photographs were taken by American photographer David Pace. Here is what he writes about the place: “Dazzlingly beautiful color and incredible people who work here. Magical place.
But the resources of the red material are not endless, and someday this quarry will stop working.