Unnamed quarry SE of Middletown (molybdenite locality), White Rock Mining District, Middletown, Middlesex County, Connecticut, USAi

Regional Level Types
Unnamed quarry SE of Middletown (molybdenite locality)	Quarry (Backfilled)
White Rock Mining District	Mining District
Middletown	- not defined -
Middlesex County	County
Connecticut	State
USA	Country

A huge, approximately 1 km long, NE-trending pegmatite was quarried by The Feldspar Corp. between the late 1980s and 1993, when all quarrying in the district ended. No name is known for this quarry. When collecting was allowed in the 1988-91 time-frame it was simply referred to, like all the quarries in the district, as the White Rocks quarry. However, this separate quarry was easily the largest pegmatite quarry in the state, if not New England, covering approximately 12 hectares (30 acres). Quarrying started in the center and was carried on separately at the NE and SW ends, all sections eventually joining into one huge quarry by 1990. The quarry has since been filled in, only a quarry face at the extreme SW end remains. The coordinates below are for the center of the quarry.

According to London (1985), this large pegmatite has very simple mineralogy and is similar to a coarse-grained granite, with little in the way of internal zoning, other than huge graphic granite microcline-quartz intergrowths, and no complex chemistry. Beryl, schorl, almandine, and fluorapatite are the major accessory minerals and they were not abundant. However, it is crossed by quartz veins that include pockets with pyrite crystals and at its NE end it produced the best molybdenite crystals in Connecticut. These were known as far back as 1825, as the word "molybdena" appears on the map by Porter (1825) in the White Rocks area.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References