[Rockhounds] Re: As a Rockhound,
do you know your home's elevation?
Alan Goldstein
deepskyspy at insightbb.com
Tue Jan 1 13:30:56 PST 2008
Yes, the quarry is in the far western part of the state. It is actually on
the Cumberland River a few miles before it joins the Ohio River. Most of the
rock is shipped by barge to the New Orleans market. I am not sure of all the
formations, but the Ste. Genevieve Limestone is pretty thick. If you mine
through the St. Louis Limestone below as well as the Salem Limestone, you
can rack up more than 300' of limestone quite easily. Below that is the Fort
Payne which is a cherty siltystone - that is probably not touched. I have
not visited the quarry, but it is not known for minerals or fossils.
The largest crystal I have personally collected (from Kentucky) is an 18"
scalenohedral calcite from the Danville Quarry. As crystals go, it sucks
(badly etched), so it is a prominent garden specimen. Our science center has
a lustrous calcite crystal some 2' x 18" from the same mineralized vein that
was collected in the early 1980's I think. Another large crystal I collected
was a 12" long x 7" wide (I'm guessing here) ferroan phlogopite crystal I
found sitting on the top of one of the dumps at the Bear Lake Diggings in
Tory Hill, Ontario in 2005. It was the first rock I picked up on that five
day collecting trip.
Alan
----- Original Message -----
From: <pmodreski at aol.com>
To: <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 3:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Re: As a Rockhound, do you know your home's
elevation?
I would have guessed that Kentucky, being an interior state, would all be
high enough above sea level that a man-made excavation reaching below sea
level would be unlikely. Not so, evidently! Thanks, Alan.
I checked the USGS publication on "Elevations and Distances in the United
States" (online at
http://erg.usgs.gov/isb/pubs/booklets/elvadist/elvadist.html
and I see that the lowest elevation in KY is listed as 257 feet above sea
level, in Fulton County along the Mississippi River. (Its' highest elev. is
Black Mountain, Harlan Co., 4145 feet.) So, I presume the limestone quarry
must be relatively near the river, and more than 257 feet deep!)
I recently visited the Rock of Ages granite quarry, in Barre, VT, which
claims to be "nearly 600 feet deep". I wonder what the deepest quarry
(relative to the adjacent land surface) in the U.S. is--perhaps, that is it;
and if the Kuttawa KY quarry is the deepest in the country relative to sea
level?
Pete
There is a man-made site 100 feet below sea level in Kentucky. It is the
Reed Quarry -- a limestone quarry in Kuttawa, KY just outside the fluorspar
district. It was one of the "top 10" in terms of limestone production in the
country.
Alan
-----Original Message-----
From: Alan Goldstein <deepskyspy at insightbb.com>
To: Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors
<rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Mon, 31 Dec 2007 1:13 pm
Subject: Re: [Rockhounds] Re: As a Rockhound, do you know your home's
elevation?
There is a man-made site 100 feet below sea level in Kentucky. It is the
Reed Quarry -- a limestone quarry in Kuttawa, KY just outside the fluorspar
district. It was one of the "top 10" in terms of limestone production in the
country.
Alan
----- Original Message ----- From: <pmodreski at aol.com>
To: <rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2007 2:03 PM
Subject: [Rockhounds] Re: As a Rockhound, do you know your home's elevation?
Hi to the Rockhounds list,
Just writing one more slightly belated response to the "your home's
elevation" thread...
I was embarassed not to know exactly my home's elevation in Wheat Ridge, CO;
all I could remember is that it's somewhere between 5400-5500
feet--wondering if that was close enough? (Most of the Denver metro area is
a bit higher than the nominal "Mile High" that we brag about.) So I finally
looked it up on on topozone.com; looks like I am about 5440 give or take 10
feet--that's more accurate that I'd trust my GPS receiver to read.
I have aquamarine specimens (a few, anyway) that I've collected on Mt.
Antero, so, checking a topo map, I think I've collected them at around
13,600', give or take a hundred feet--that's on the southwest ridge of Mt.
Antero, there being, as collectors who go there know, no aquamarine higher
than about 13,800' on the actual summit area (summit, 14,269).
I'd never thought much about a lowest place where I'd collected, but (not
having collected minerals or fossils at very many sites along the coasts),
one such would be Cliffwood Beach, New Jersey, a sea level site along the
shore of Raritan Bay where Cretaceous marine fossils are (or used to be)
found, along with pyrite/marcasite concretions--similar to (but not as nice
looking as) the ones from the clay pits in not-too-far-away Sayreville NJ.
This is IF I have any of the pyrite concretions that have not all
decomposed--as per the other recent thread here. Amber is supposed to be
found here too, though I never noticed any, back when I lived in NJ and
collected here a few times (long time ago!). The approx. location is,
40° 26' 48"N, 74° 12' 36"W (NAD83/WGS84)
I don't think I have any specimens dredged from the great depths, as Kreigh
does. But continuing on the theme of lowest places, here is a very
interesting website, from geology.com, a tour of the lowest (below sea
level) "dry land" places on earth. It notes that "a total of 33 countries
have land below sea level", and if you're up for a quiz, try naming the 10
lowest places (of dry land, not lake or sea bottoms) on the planet before
you look at the answers:
http://geology.com/below-sea-level/
(hint, two of them are in the U.S., and the lowest one worldwide should be
easy to guess...)
happy New Year to all,
Pete Modreski
-----Original Message-----
From: Ted Kowalski <Ted at crystalgems.com>
To: 'Rockhounds at drizzle.com: A mailing list for rock and gem collectors'
<rockhounds at lists.drizzle.com>
Sent: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 8:17 am
Subject: RE: As a Rockhound, do you know your home's elevation? [WAS: Re:
[Rockhounds] "list wherethe knowledge of many is shared freely"}
My house is at 270' above sea level and no, I don't have to look it up. I've
ired up my GPS and TOPO software here at home central to know how high I
m.
I prefer to dig or break rock wherever I can. I've dug at seal level and at
very level above that, well I haven't rock hounded above 10,000 feet yet,
ut I am still relatively young. I do prefer to dig in cool and breezy
laces, so I do have some preference for elevations; which here in the east
s anything above 1000 feet.
Ted Kowalski
redericksburg, VA USA
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