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 start fir ...

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some jurisdictions to reduce their envi ...

located in Hopewell Township, Licking County,

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, 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 start fir ...

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 form ...

and the flint on the ridge is within the Vanport Limestone Member of the

Allegheny Formation The Pennsylvanian Allegheny Formation is a mapped bedrock unit in western and central Pennsylvania, western Maryland and West Virginia, and southeastern Ohio. It is a major coal-bearing unit in the Appalachian Plateau of the eastern United States ...

of Pennsylvanian 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 oceanic basin, 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 ...

References

External links

Flint Ridge State Memorial
- official site
FLINT - OHIO'S OFFICIAL GEMSTONE
{{authority control 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