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Microfacial analysis on the building stones of the Maya site of Calakmul

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Abstract

This article focuses on the petrographic and microfacial characterization of the building stones of buildings, monuments, and quarries of the archeological site of Calakmul to document aspects of composition, lithologies, and stone exploitation. Microfacial analysis shows that the used building rocks are highly recrystallized biosparudites (grainstones to packstones) with the presence of reef and shallow waters fauna (boundstones). These rocks have an intermediate porosity (10–20% pore volume values). XRD analysis confirms that the mineral composition is mainly not only calcite, but also dolomite. Microfacies analysis demonstrates that the limestone of the stelae and the SubII c-1 main façade comes from the same quarry since both have the same textures and microfacial features. Their fine texture corroborates that these stones are suitable for carving and lime production. Microfacial analysis also showed that samples from St. XX Gran Acropolis and from Chan Chi’ich Group come from different quarries. These results help us to identify the origin of the rocks, their use in the buildings and monuments studied, and contribute to the knowledge of their lithological characteristics and their response to weathering in a tropical context. Such aspects are crucial to the decision making for future conservation processes.

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Funding

SEM-EDS and XRD analyses conducted at LANNBIO (CINVESTAV, Mérida), with support from projects FOMIX-Yucatán 2008-108160 CONACYT LAB-2009-01-123913, 188345, 204822, 292692, 294643, 299083 and archeological Project Calakmul-INAH.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sección de Conservación y Restauración, Centro INAH-Yucatán, Calle 10 310-A, Gonzalo Guerrero, 97310, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

    Claudia Araceli García-Solís

  2. Departamento de Física Aplicada, CINVESTAV-IPN, A.P. 73, Cordemex, 97310, Mérida, Yucatán, Mexico

    Patricia Quintana-Owen

  3. Geological Institute, Autonomous University of San Luis Potosí, Av. Dr. Manuel Nava 5, Zona Universitaria, 78290, San Luis Potosí, Mexico

    Rubén Alfonso López-Doncel

  4. Centro de Investigación en Corrosión, Universidad Autónoma de Campeche, Av. Agustín Melgar s/n, 24039, San Francisco de Campeche, Mexico

    Juan Francisco Illescas-Salinas

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  1. Claudia Araceli García-Solís
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  2. Patricia Quintana-Owen
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  3. Rubén Alfonso López-Doncel
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  4. Juan Francisco Illescas-Salinas
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Contributions

CAG-S: conceptualization, analysis, investigation, writing, editing. Q-OP: conceptualization, editing, supervision, project administration. L-DRA: writing, editing, and investigation. JFI-S: analysis and editing.

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Correspondence to Rubén Alfonso López-Doncel.

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García-Solís, C.A., Quintana-Owen, P., López-Doncel, R.A. et al. Microfacial analysis on the building stones of the Maya site of Calakmul. Environ Earth Sci 82, 299 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-023-10987-z

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