Thursday, October 15, 2009
Maine Mineral Photo of the Day
Smoky Quartz crystal from an extremely radioactive and deadly section of the Wm. Willes #1 Quarry in Topsham, Maine, July 2000.
This quarry was dug in the late 1800s to extract high grade feldspar from the core of a granite pegmatite. The feldspar was ground up and shipped to pottery factories in New Jersey where it was used to make ceramic glazes.
Recent research shows that Topsham, Maine is the root of an exotic chunk of continental crust that slammed into the rest of North America about 350 million years ago.