The Quarry

Boyo at the quarry

BFF's middle brother E. overlooking the quarry.

Today we had a field trip to a local Quarry with Boyo's cub scout pack. Girlie and BFF were the tag-a-long Daisy contingent.

It was a wonderful time! The kids were taken to watch the entire rock process. First, we watched them blast some rock loose from the walls of the quarry.

Before:

Notice the 12 holes drilled in formation? The blasting caps and other boom making things are in those holes. Yep, I know, really technical terms. I was wrangling a kid when they were talking about the explosives.

After:

To see it in action- Sorry my camera only shoots for 5 seconds and I am just figuring it out. Turn on your sound. The biggest laughs you hear at the end are Girlie.

After the explosion, we drove into the quarry to get a closer look at the different machines and to watch the guys (only guys, didn't see any female workers) load up a truck full of the rubble from the explosion.

Then we got back into our cars and drove to the crusher (Sorry again, I deleated those pictures by accident) When the rubble was dumped on to huge conveyor belts and moved this way and that to a big orange box that rattled and shook. This crushed the rocks into smaller chunks for landscaping stone. It it also crushed the rocks smaller into aggregate for concrete or asphalt.

We were given a chance to pick though some rocks that were dumped into a special field for us. Many of the boys found Calcite crystals, along with bits of quartz and marble. Some of the boys even found Metabasalt (metamorphosed basalt) which they called coal since it is dark and layered looking, like coal. (Many kids in this area have coal stoves so it is normal for black rocks to be found, they just assumed that all black rocks of a certain size and look are coal. The difference was explained between coal and metabasalt. The main difference being that coal will burn in a stove and metabasalt won't).

Thank you L# Quarry for the wonderful field trip! (I'd put the real name of the quarry but I have privacy concerns.)