Walton Quarry EarthCache

Walton Quarry

Walton is a village in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in the Municipal District of East Hants, Nova Scotia.  Acadians lived in the village before the Expulsion of the Acadians. At that time the community was named Petit Rivier.

At this site you will find an old gypsum quarry visible up a short dirt road only about 100 meters. This quarry had been operated almost continuously for about 100 years, and is one of the oldest. Gypsum Mining started in 1820 and ceased in 1972 due to the small vessel size able to dock at Walton.

The Walton mine yields a compact variety of greyish white and blue gypsum. Anhydrite occurs in small lenticular masses throughout the whole deposit, but not in large quantities. It is a  steep walled rock quarry on all sides but the entry road. You will see the abandoned quarry filled with cold blue water with steep walls, which are white gypsum with grey veins running through it. What you see at ground zero is only a small portion of the whole mine.

Today the quarry, like many other former mines, is a lovely lake.  This makes an interesting summer dive with some small fishes and frogs as well as many insects. It excels as a unique, clear water ice diving location - but only for trained ice diving personnel in appropriate teams with the right equipment.

Geology of Gypsum in Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia contains enormous deposits of Windsor Group (Mississippian) gypsum overlain by extensive late Wisconsian glacial drift. A variety of dissolution karst structures and landforms are the outstanding feature of many areas underlain by gypsum, including sinkholes. These sinkholes are typically filled with clay, sand or other materials including organic deposits of glacial origin as well as older karst fill of Cretaceous age.

All deposits of gypsum quarried at present have innumerable karst features over their upper surfaces infilled by Pleistocene materials and annually cases of sinkholes suddenly opening up on properties around the province graphically show that dissolution of gypsum and anhydrite continues at present. A comparison of the surficial geology map of the province with the distribution of gypsum occurrences and deposits establishes that gypsum in Nova Scotia is overlain by glacial deposits dominated by ground moraine.

Most collectors are familiar with the minerals gypsum and anhydrite. Both consist basically of calcium sulfate. The difference is that gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) is a hydrous mineral with two attached molecules of water. Anhydrite, as its name implies, is an anhydrous mineral with no attached water molecules (CaSO4). Andydrite can also be white, sometimes greyish, bluish or purple.

Both look the same except few physical properties that are distinguishable. One is that Gypsum is softer than Anhydrite. At Moh's hardness scale Gypsum is 2 and Anhydrite is about 3 to 3.5. Try this simple experiment of scratching a rock cutting with your finger nail, if you can scratch it, it is Gypsum not Anhydrite

To log this Earthcache visit the viewing location.  Please answer the following questions and send in a timely manner to my geocaching profile or email. Answers not received will result in deleted logs.

Questions:

1. What is the height, width and elevation of the quarry that you can see at ground zero?

2. Find a piece of whitish rock and can you scratch it with your finger nail, what kind of rock is it?

3. What other colours are present in the rock wall and water?

4. Post a picture in your log with a personal item or hand in picture to prove you were there.

[REQUIRED] In accordance with the updated guidelines from Geocaching Headquarters published in June 2019, photos are now an acceptable logging requirement and WILL BE REQUIRED TO LOG THIS CACHE. Please provide a photo of yourself or a personal item in the picture to prove you visited the site.