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A
Rocky Business:
Quarries
in Virginia
Modern
quarries in the Old Dominion owe their existence to
the automobile – and muddy roads. In fact, in
1928, before the state took over road maintenance, Fairfax
County opened a quarry near Centreville to extract crushed
stone for county roads. Now privately owned, the Luck
Stone Corporation quarry site on Route 29
provided material to build Interstate 66, Dulles
Airport and schools and hospitals in the state. Other
quarries operated by the company, which has 18 sites
in the commonwealth, have contributed material to
the Route 288 connector in
Richmond
and Henrico County’s Short Pump Town Center
Mall.
The
Pounding Mill Quarry in southwest Virginia
dates from 1913 when a young engineer returned to
the area after working on the New York aqueducts. He opened a limestone quarry that
originally sold its entire product to the Norfolk
and Southern Railroad.
Crushed
stone, sand, gravel and dimension stone quarries are
spread across the state. A number of quarry
operations with multiple sites belong to the Virginia
Transportation Construction Alliance, a trade
association that includes aggregate producers.
“Aggregate” is the term used for particulate
materials used in construction for foundations,
roads and railroad beds, among other uses. For
example, concrete is made up of 80 percent aggregate
stone. Dimension stone quarries, which differ from
aggregate quarries, extract flat stone, which can be
used for flagstones, counter tops, roofs and other
projects that require large slabs of stone.
A
quarry differs from other mines because it is not
built underground and is usually no deeper than 60
feet. A quarry operation begins with a shallow pit
excavated in a deposit of rock, which is gradually
expanded to remove the valuable rock.
Explosives are used in gravel or crushed-stone
quarries to break up the rocks before they are
transported to processing or construction sites.
Dimension stone has to be more carefully
removed to keep the slabs intact.
Active quarries can be threatened by
groundwater and rain so they are often surrounded
with moats of water-tight materials that keep
seepage out and are covered to protect the quarry
from rain.
According
to the Division
of Geology and Mineral Resources of the Virginia
Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy, the state
ranked 10th in the country for crushed stone
production in 2003. About 75 million tons of crushed
stone were produced, valued at $479 million. Since
then, crushed stone production and price has not
changed much. Here in the commonwealth, limestone, dolostone,
sandstone, quartzite, granite, gneiss,
basalt greenstone,
aplite,
slate and marble are all quarried for crushed stone.
Sand
and gravel operations rank second in nonfuel
mineral operations after crushed stone in
Virginia
. In 2003 there were 279 such operations in 55
counties or states in the commonwealth.
They produced 14.5 million short tons of
material with a value of $82.4 million. Since 1990,
production had decreased 38 percent due in part to
the need to produce large quantities to make a
profit. Transportation
is also a cost, so many sand and gravel operations
produce their material for local markets.
Quarries
have a limited life. Once
they are no longer profitable, quarries sometimes
begin second lives as training grounds for scuba
divers or rich resources for fossil hunters.
Apparently, scuba divers at one time came from all
over to fine tune their skills at the Millbrook
Quarry in Haymarket. One enthusiast was thrilled to
find an old plane, four boats, two cars, a UPS
truck, school bus, dunking tank, and motorcycle
submerged and ready to explore. Diving was suspended
for a time after the Virginia Department of Game and
Inland Fisheries found zebra mussels, which can clog
water treatment and power plants, in the quarry in
2002.
The
Solite
Quarry in Pittsylvania County
in Southside Virginia is a prime destination for fossil hunters.
Considered by many scientists to be one of the top
five fossil sites in the world, it has yielded 25
different types of insect fossils, as well as plants
that are more than 200 million years old. Once a
deep lake, the Solite Quarry has yielded complete
insects that show details such as wing pattern,
antennae and even microscopic hair on their small
bodies. There
are also plant fossils of cones, palm-like leaves
and tiny ferns. Scientists
actually discovered the fossil of a new type of
flying reptile, which they named Mecistotrachelos
apeoros or “soaring, long-necked."
Whether
you are a diver, a hunter of ancient insects or just
a seeker of the perfect granite slab for the kitchen
and want to advertise your passion for quarries,
check out the gear offered by Pit
& Quarry Magazine. There are “Mine Your Ps
& Qs” and “Got Rocks” T-shirts, mugs,
barbeque aprons and even infant bibs.
All for under $20.
--
September 8, 2008
NOTE:
The authors of
the “Nice & Curious” column would
like to thank Jim Bacon for his many years of
enthusiasm for our quirky articles.
We have come full circle. One of our first
columns in late 2004 was “The Dirt on Virginia’s Roads” about those who prefer unpaved byways.
Since then we’ve written on every
Virginia
topic imaginable from the commonwealth’s
earthquakes and airports to its melungeons and
obsolete laws. Thank-you, Jim, for indulging the
curiosity of two “information professionals” and
we wish you well in all your future endeavors.
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