Minerals from the Dallas City Quarry,
Dallas City, Henderson County, Illinois and Gray's (Miller's) Quarry in
Hamilton, Hancock County, Illinois.
The Dallas City Quarry is located east of Dallas City along
Illinois Route 96 in Henderson County, Illinois. Of all of the quarries in
western Illinois, Dallas City produced very little material even when legally
accessible to a few local collectors. The calcites from this quarry were
typically bigger than at surrounding quarries but with the limestone matrix
being so hard, it was difficult to collect specimens without damage.
Access was recently sealed off to even those few collectors who had legal
access.
Gray's Quarry (now Miller's Quarry) is located at the
southwest edge of Hamilton near the junction of US 136 and the Warsaw Road.
This quarry was one of the most popular geode collecting sites back in the 1960s
and 1970s. The quarry would blast the Warsaw shale and take truckloads of
shale and geodes to the dump area where collectors could then pick through the
material for the geodes. This was in the days before liability concerns
and the quarry is now largely off limits to any collecting. Millerite, calcite, and sphalerite were also found in the lower layers of the
quarry. There has been very limited access to especially local rock clubs
in recent years but finds on these trips have not yielded very much or finds
have been kept largely silent. The quarry is in the process of expanding
further to the northeast.
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Dallas City 03:
Marcasite on limestone: Measures 7.5 x 6 x 1 cm (3 x 2.4 x 0.4 inches)
- $8.00
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Gray Quarry 01:
Calcite with Millerite and Polydymite inclusions: Gray's Quarry,
Hamilton, Hancock County, Illinois: Measures 7 x 6 x 2.5 cm (2.8 x 2.4
x 1 inches) - $35.00
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A heavy coating of very small but iridescent marcasite crystals covers
one side of this piece while the other side has more of a scattering of
crystals. A good specimen of this mineral from the quarry with no
discernable damage. $8.00 |
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A limestone base serves as the host for calcite crystals with millerite
and polydymite inclusions. These nickel minerals are best viewed under
10x magnification. Specimen was collected around 1970. Some edge
contacting to a few calcites but nothing significant. $35.00 |
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