It's south of Lee Highway. It looks like some sort of mining is going on, but I would think that land would be protected by the parks service. It's huge.

It's one (er...two) of the many quarries in the area: http://maps.google.com/?ll=38.824798,-77.491636&spn=0.015948,0.020256&t=h&z=16

If you move northwest of that one you'll find another - in fact, they just rerouted a road so they could dig more.

Head a little more north to Route 50 and there's another.

That is to say, all of us to the east, southeast, and northeast (!!! That's downwind of them all!) of these guys are full of rock dust.

Pity the poor wealthier homeowners to the east of that recently-expanded site...

It's a quarry. One of several in the area.

They are mining for a rock called "diabase". It is the intrusive form of basalt. It is called "bluestone" or "trap rock" in the construction trade.

NatGEO Wrote:
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> ...It is called "bluestone" or "trap rock" in the construction
> trade.

Ah...that's the stuff I used as a foundation under some decorative granite bricks around my garden per advice of the place I got the bricks. It appears to be pretty stable.

Typical gravel driveway gravel... Blue stone. Merrifeld garden center sells it for $42 a cubic yard.
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I saw something on tv once about it saying that is the largest gravel mine of it's kind? They do tours on the weekends, pretty cool.

I know one thing..... I wouldnt want to go off the side of 29 headed north by it. It's a long way down to the bottom of that hole!

http://www.novahistory.org/LuckStoneQuarry/LuckStoneQuarry.html

Good place to take a "hike" durring the winter months right before a trip to costa rica.

there is another one in leesburg, also owned by Luckstone, that is very large. you can watch the trucks and stuff from the w&od trail. those are gonna be some massive lakes one day. oh yeah, there is one near the occoquan dam. check that out on google maps. its huge, and right next to the fairfax county water plant. that quarry will probably be joined with the occoquan reservoir at some point to expand capacity. pretty neat stuff.

splat! Wrote:
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> Good place to take a "hike" durring the winter
> months right before a trip to costa rica.
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Luck Stone has several quarries around the area. We were able to take a tour of the quarry on Lee Highway one Saturday morning serveral years ago. An employee drives your car around and talks about the working going on. There is a tunnel that goes under Lee Highway to the north side where there is another quarry.

The quarries are expected to play out in about 20-30 years and Fairfax County has Luck working on a plan to reclaim the property for a potential housing development -- WTF?

blanche Wrote:
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> ...Fairfax County has Luck working on
> a plan to reclaim the property for a potential
> housing development -- WTF?


Works for me!

Before reading this thread I was always taking rocks for granite.