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
Licking County is a county located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Ohio. At the 2020 census, the population was 178,519. Its county seat is Newark. The county was formed on January 30, 1808, from portions of Fairfield County.
It is ...
,
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
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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