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Farewell to Greenspring
You are here: MineralCollecting.org >> Posted Articles >> Article 18

by Steve Weinberger, Glyndon, Maryland
cweinber@bcpl.net
This article appeared in the January 1999 issue of the Mineral Mite, the newsletter of the Micromounters of the National Capital Area in Washington, D. C.

FAREWELL TO GREENSPRING.

Friday, December 31, 1999 was the last time that rockhounds could have gotten into the Greenspring Quarry to collect. For over 120 years, this old quarry, located just inside the Baltimore Beltway (I-695) at Greenspring Ave. (exit 22) has been producing railroad ballast, carbonate and concrete sands and macadam. Most of the material has gone to produce roads. Carolyn and I have passed this quarry all of our lives and watched as development encircled the site. We'd never had the chance to "look inside".

The quarry's pit is 500 feet deep (well below sea level in that area) and that's where we went in search of a variety of minerals. Over the years, the quarry has produced the following: "pyrite crystals, cubes and octahedrons, brown tourmaline, phlogopite, calcite crystals and cleavages, black tourmaline in microcline, sphalerite grains, garnets, fuchsite, epidote, muscovite, talc, dolomite, limonite, quartz xls, pyrrhotite, rutile, sphene, serpentine and graphite." (from Minerals of Maryland, 1940 by Charles Ostrander & Walter Price) On our visit we found pyrite, tourmaline, phlogopite, calcite, sphalerite, quartz and pyrrhotite. Johnny Johnsson, Director of Environmental Affairs and Real Estate for Arundel Corporation escorted our group from the Baltimore Mineral Society and Chesapeake Mineral Society around the quarry. He is a mining engineer and professional engineer with 15 years experience at Arundel. (He's also a former 8th grade student of mine.) Now that the final blasting is completed, Arundel will be hauling away crushed stone from its stockpile at the site. In June, the property will be turned over to a developer who will convert the area to housing, building individual and town homes. The pit will be allowed to fill and become the deepest lake in Maryland. Estimates are that this will take from four to five years. A portion of the property will become a regional park.

One of Johnny's other interests is in mining history and he invited Jay Lininger, editor of Matrix Magazine along on the dig. Jay took a number of photos - so you may see them one day in an article on the Greenspring Quarry.

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