Flint Ridge Ancient Quarries and Nature Preserve is a
Native American flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...
quarry
A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...
located in
Hopewell Township,
Licking County,
Ohio
Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...
, about three miles north of
Brownsville at the intersection of Brownsville Road and Flint Ridge Road. Old quarry pits are visible, and a museum is located on the site.
Flint
Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...
is a variety of
quartz
Quartz is a hard, crystalline mineral composed of silica ( silicon dioxide). The atoms are linked in a continuous framework of SiO4 silicon-oxygen tetrahedra, with each oxygen being shared between two tetrahedra, giving an overall chemical ...
and the flint on the ridge is within the Vanport Limestone Member of the
Allegheny Formation of
Pennsylvanian Pennsylvanian may refer to:
* A person or thing from Pennsylvania
* Pennsylvanian (geology)
The Pennsylvanian ( , also known as Upper Carboniferous or Late Carboniferous) is, in the International Commission on Stratigraphy, ICS geologic timesca ...
age.
Flint Ridge was an important source of flint and
Native Americans extracted the flint from hundreds of quarries along the ridge.
This "Ohio Flint" was traded across the eastern United States and has been found as far west as the
Rocky Mountains
The Rocky Mountains, also known as the Rockies, are a major mountain range and the largest mountain system in North America. The Rocky Mountains stretch in straight-line distance from the northernmost part of western Canada, to New Mexico in ...
and south around the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of the United S ...
.
References
External links
Flint Ridge State Memorial- official site
FLINT - OHIO'S OFFICIAL GEMSTONE
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Museums in Licking County, Ohio
National Register of Historic Places in Licking County, Ohio
Archaeological sites on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio
State parks of Ohio
Ohio History Connection
Protected areas of Licking County, Ohio
Native American museums in Ohio
Mining museums in Ohio
Natural history museums in Ohio