Editing Diabase (section)

==Use==

Diabase is crushed and used as a [[construction aggregate]] for road beds, buildings, railroad beds (rail ballast), and within dams and levees.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Allen|first1=George|title=Clayton Quarry|url=http://www.mdia.org/site/mining/clayton-quarry|publisher=Mount Diablo Interpretive Association|date=Spring 2004|access-date=2017-03-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171116184525/http://www.mdia.org/site/mining/clayton-quarry|archive-date=2017-11-16|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="comparerocks">{{cite web|title=Diabase Rock|url=http://www.comparerocks.com/en/diabase-rock/model-82-0|publisher=comparerocks.com|access-date=2017-03-30|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170331115113/http://www.comparerocks.com/en/diabase-rock/model-82-0|archive-date=2017-03-31|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Diabase can be cut for use as [[headstone]]s and memorials; the base of the [[Marine Corps War Memorial]] is made of black diabase "granite" (a commercial term, not actual granite). Diabase can also be cut for use as ornamental stone for countertops, facing stone on buildings, and paving.<ref name="comparerocks"/> A form of dolerite, known as [[bluestone]], is one of the materials used in the construction of [[Stonehenge]].<ref name="AGI_Stonehenge">{{cite web | url=https://www.earthmagazine.org/article/stonehenges-mysterious-stones | title=Stonehenge's Mysterious Stones | publisher=[[American Geosciences Institute]] | work=Earth magazine | date=31 December 2008 | access-date=8 November 2019 | first1=Brian S. | last1=John | first2=Lionel E. | last2=Jackson Jr.}}</ref>

Diabase also serves as local building stone. In Tasmania, where it is one of the most common rocks found,<ref name="TasVitiGeoMap">{{cite web | url=https://dpipwe.tas.gov.au/Documents/Geology3.pdf | title=Tasmanian Viticultural Soils and Geology | publisher=Tasmania Department of Primary Industries, Water and Environment / University of Tasmania / Tasmanian Institute of Agricultural Research | access-date=8 November 2019}}</ref> it is used for building, for landscaping and to erect [[Dry stone|dry-stone]] farm walls. In northern [[County Down]], Northern Ireland, "dolerite" is used in buildings such as [[Mount Stewart]] together with Scrabo Sandstone as both are quarried at Scrabo Hill.

Balls of diabase were used by the ancient Egyptians as pounding tools for working softer (but still hard) stones.<ref name="Pounders">{{cite journal | title = Dolerite pounders: Petrology, sources, and use | journal = Lithic Technology | volume = 35 | issue = 2 | year = 2010 | pages = 127–148 | last1 = Kelany | first1 = Adel | last2 = Harrell | first2 = James A. | last3 = Brown | first3 = V. Max | doi = 10.1080/01977261.2010.11721087 | jstor = 23273763 | s2cid = 127942498 | url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/23273763 | quote = Dolerite pounders are hand-held stone tools that were widely used in Egypt from the third to late first millennium BCE for quarrying and dressing granite and other hard rocks.| url-access = subscription }}</ref>