Befriend Your Local Quarry

I've known various quarries over the years, most of them former quarries. One or two have turned into swimming holes, some became an upscale residential development, still others were just eyesores. The humblest one was a geological landmark: the Hoyt Quarry in upstate New York, which is the type locality for the widespread Hoyt Limestone. This little photo shows my current local quarry, in Oakland, California. Part of it is now a shopping center, overlooked by an art college, and part of it is a fenced-off pond, overlooked by a cemetery.

But the beauty of nearly all quarries is that they are surgical incisions into the Earth, past the surface layers and into the living bedrock. Where the land is covered with buildings and roads, bedrock is a precious sight.
_{Drugstore in an ex-quarry — Geology Guide photo}