Sand, gravel, and crushed rock rate high among geologic products in Colorado; more than $27,000,000 worth of these materials were produced in the state in 1969. Highway and construction activities have brought recent expansion in the number and size of quarries and gravel pits. Increasingly, Coloradoans are insisting that quarries and pits be excavated only where they will not mar the natural beauty of the landscape, and many old pits are now being filled in. Unfortunately, the scars left by some quarries—such as that on the Rampart Range near Colorado Springs—are difficult to erase.
Clay of good quality occurs in Cretaceous deposits in many parts of Colorado, most frequently in the Dakota or Laramie Formations. In the area around Golden, the Coors Porcelain Company for many years mined clay for use in pottery and low temperature ceramic ware. Scars from this mining can be seen along the mountain front north and south of Golden, and deep clefts within the town, just west of Colorado School of Mines, testify to the amounts of clay that have been removed. Colorado clay is not pure enough to be used in high temperature ceramics, and the present use for it is in the manufacture of common tiles and bricks.
A recent development in Colorado is the use of Cretaceous Pierre shales in manufacturing lightweight aggregate for building. The shale is mined between Golden and Boulder, near Colorado highway 93. In the nearby plant, it is pulverized and then heated in a large rotating cylinder until the surface of each particle fuses. Then the particles are quickly cooled. The resulting product is much like cinder, light in weight and yet strong. It can be mixed with cement for use in construction work requiring a great strength-to-weight ratio, or made into concrete blocks.
Quarrying of Paleozoic limestones and dolomites along the east flank of the Rampart Range northwest of Colorado Springs has badly defaced a prominent mountain backdrop. Recent seeding efforts by quarry operators are returning the exhausted part of the quarry to its original lightly vegetated condition, and hopefully, as the quarry is depleted, the scar will disappear. (John Chronic photo)
Stone
In Colorado, as in most parts of the world, building stone for local use is quarried locally. Two of the state’s stones, however—Yule Marble from the Crystal River Canyon, and Lyons Sandstone of the Front Range—have been more widely used.
The Yule Marble, or Yule Colorado Marble, was produced by metamorphism of Leadville Limestone in an area intruded by the Treasure Mountain [Granite], thirty-five miles south of Glenwood Springs. This exquisite marble, which has graced many famous monuments and buildings (among them the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier), is known for its almost uniform snowy whiteness and regular, fine crystallization. Although its beauty, massive character, and uniformity made it a sought-after ornamental stone, quarrying was economically marginal because of the remoteness of the site. In spite of this, nearly $7,000,000 worth of the marble was produced before the quarry closed in 1940.
Pure white marble was quarried for many years at the Yule Colorado Marble Quarry, about three miles southeast of the village of Marble. (U. S. Geological Survey photo)