You are on Rocks Page 10
Click To Go To:
Rocks & Minerals Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12
TABLE OF CONTENTS ON PAGE 1
FINDING THE SWANTON RED MARBLE
We checked the Vermont Marble Trail booklet we picked up, that directed us to many of the things made from Vermont marble all over the state (bridges, buildings, etc). We found the "Barney Mill & Factory" way at the top of the state in Swanton VT in the book, as the center of where the Swanton red marble was cut & processed from the 1850's till the 1930's. It was worth trying, though people looked at us a little weird to be going there, a small town without a lot of attractions for tourists. Well, tourists we are not. |
We drove through Swanton an did not immediately see a site for the Mill. We crossed the bridge, stopped at the Swanton Lumber Co. for information. We were directed to the oldest employee (John) whose grandfather worked at the mill in the 1930's until it closed.
He told us to drive back over the bridge, make a left into a small park where we could access the riverbank where cut pieces from the old mill upstream might be found. There we found a set of blocks of Swanton marble right there in the park. We immediately found cut pieces of all three marbles (white/gray, green and the Swanton red) there on the riverbank, Gray/white on the left, and the great Swanton Red marbles and indeed, huge buried boulders of the red marble too. If we'd driven our own van instead of flying and renting a car, we would surely have dug up this boulder to take home. Here is a wider view of both sides of the riverbank, the right-hand photo shows the bridge we came across. So we drove back to the Lumber yard, and presented John with a nice specimen of cut Swanton marble as a thank you for the directions. He also directed us to a church in town that is completely made of rough-hewn blocks of the Swanton red marble quarried right there in their town. An appropriate ending to a successful hunt! |
And we found white marble with grey veins right beside the road and the waterfall next to the American Precision Museum in Windsor, VT |
HOW TECHNICAL DO YOU WANT TO GET?
Here's the scoop on what marble is... Marble is a metamorphic rock resulting from metamorphism of sedimentary, carbonate rocks (limestone or dolomite). This process causes a complete re-crystallization of the original rock into an interlocking mosaic of calcite, aragonite and/or dolomite crystals. The temperatures and pressures necessary to form marble usually destroy any fossils and sedimentary textures present in the original rock. Pure white marble is the result of metamorphism of very pure limestone. The characteristic swirls and veins of many colored marble varieties are usually due to various mineral impurities such as clay, silt, sand, iron oxides or chert which were originally present as grains or layers in the limestone. Green coloration is often due to serpentine contact. These various impurities have been mobilized and re-crystallized by the intense pressure and heat of the metamorphism. Comparative weights & measures of marble to sandstone, brick, coal, water, ice, glass, brass, steel, wrought iron, silver lead, gold and platinum (thanks to the Vermont Marble Museum display): |
Click To Go To:
Rocks & Minerals Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12
TABLE OF CONTENTS ON PAGE 1