Welsh Slate
Welsh Slate is the finest slate to be found anywhere in the world The best Welsh slate was laid down 500 million years ago as a fine silt on the sea floor. The silt was of the eroded remains of a massive mountain range and it was slowly laid down on the sea floor to a thickness of well over a mile where it became 'mudstone'. At this time the land that is today Wales was situated 60 degrees south of the equator and was part of an ancient land mass called Avalonia. Avalonia was situated closer to Antarctica than what New Zealand is today. The southernmost part of New Zealand, Invercargill, in comparison lies at just 47 degrees south. At the time this was happening there were no animals on land. The creatures that lived in the oceans had not yet evolved to where they became land animals. The layered mudstone that formed from those eroded sediments was gradually thrust down over six miles deep into the earth's mantle both through its own weight and ...