This is a question many of us have pondered. Or, few of us...well, just Chase. Thank goodness my stepdad works at a rock quarry! He gave us the nickel tour, and we got to wear hard hats (which I look fabulous in, I must say...lol)! You can always know that anywhere you have to wear a hard hat there's going to be a good time.
We got to see where they were drilling holes for the day's 'shot'. They drop dynamite down the holes, and blow up a large section in order to excavate the stone that is freed. Large bulldozers pick up the stones and drop them into giant two-story trucks called 'eucs' which can carry up to 60-tons each. The eucs take these large stones to the 'jaw' which crushes them.
All of the crushed rock falls from the jaw onto a long conveyor which carries it out of the quarry. It falls onto a large pile. There the larges sizes of rocks are collected, and the smaller bits fall through to another conveyor. This conveyor carries the smaller rocks to another pile, where they collect and smaller pieces fall through to another conveyor and so on and so on. It goes through this NINE TIMES. Did you know there are nine sizes of rocks? Well, there are. And the most expensive rocks are the smallest. Neato! In addition to that they also use these mineral aggregates to manufacture lime, topsoil, and other various and sundry products you never imagined could be made out of crushed rocks.
Guys in big dumptrucks drive up to a pile of rocks, such as 4's, or 7's, and they fill'er up. Then they go to the scale house, where they get weighed. That's where my dad works. He weighs trucks all day long. Then those dumptrucks carry the crushed rock to places like, umm, railroads, and driveways, and umm, well I'm sure there are lots of other places that need crushed rock because that places stays busy.
After the tour we got to go to the very top rim of the quarry and watch the shot! There was a loud siren, then we saw a lot of smoke and dust and a rockslide, then we heard a kaboom! A loud, earth-shattering kaboom! We caught a picture of it, which is actually the first picture that you see.
All in all, the quarry was quite fascinating. Chase would probably like to go get a degree in geology so that he could work with my dad, but that would take another 4 years, and we've got other stuff to do.
2 comments:
ok i have a pet rock and i need to know what it eat eats, drinks, if its a male or female,....you know the basics. also how does it reproduce. do they go to the bathroom because if so i need to kick him out of my house!!!! EWWWWWWWW
stupid person there is no such think as pet rocks. dumb monkey butttttttt gosh
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