» The quarries

The Lasa Marmo JSC marble quarries are situated in the little village of Laas (Lasa) which lies approximately half-way between the spa town of Meran (Merano) and the historic little village of Mals (Malles) in the picturesque Vinschgau (Venosta) valley in the German-speaking province of South Tyrol in Northern Italy.

The Weißwasser quarry in Laas (Lasa), the most worked quarry of the area, lies at 1,600 metres above sea level just behind the little hamlet of Weiler Tarnell. Lechner Marmor JSC has plans to open the three other quarries it owns, the Jennwand, Zirmwand and Mahdboden, sometime in the near future. It is conservatively estimated that something like thirty million cubic metres of marble remain to be quarried from the Jennwand mountain making it one of the world’s largest marble quarries. All the Laas (Lasa) quarries are part of the Laas (Lasa) area deposits and are, without doubt, the largest deposits of the precious, rare, top-quality marble in the world. Lasa marble has, in fact, an excellent reputation on the international market. The “Tarnellerbruch”, a second quarry which lies at the same altitude as the Weißwasser quarry, is not working at present. Various important marble deposits have been found in the area over the years including the “Mahdwand” site at 1,780 metres above sea level just behind the “Jenngraben” and the higher “Valtinboden” deposit which lies a little further along the valley at 1,914 metres. The “Jennwand-Ries” was the first deposit to be quarried on a commercial scale. A further three deposits, aptly named the New Quarry, the Middle Quarry and the Back Quarry, lie at between 2,150 and 2,200 metres behind and above the “Zirmkopf”, the first deposit to be quarried on a commercial scale. In the past, marble has also been extracted from the “Zirmwand” quarry near the 1,914 mt. high “Zirmkopf”, from the Higher “Nesselwand” at 1,635 metres and from the Lower “Nesselwand” at 1,160 metres.