LOCATION: The "quarry" is located in a pasture approximately 300 m southwest of the house at the end of Hyder Road, off SC Highway 9. Hyder Road is 0.8 mile west of the intersection of SC 9 with S-42-57. (Fig. 3, Kelton quadrangle)
DESCRIPTION: This abandoned quarry (Fig. 4) illustrates the salient features of the Bald Rock granite: its megacrystic texture, the strong alignment of phenocrysts, and the parallel alignment of mafic enclaves. The megacrystic granite here is coarse-grained. The most common mafic phase here is biotite, hornblende may also be found. The orientation of megacrysts and mafic enclaves here is about north-south. Wagener (1977) reports that this quarry provided crushed stone for the interstate highway system.
Dennis and Wright (1993, 1995) have dated the Bald Rock granite by the U-Pb zircon method. Three fractions of zircon yielded an upper intercept at 323+/-3 Ma interpreted to be a crystallization age. Their sample came from this location. Dallmeyer and others (1986, p. 1331) report an 1985 personal communication from P.D. Fullagar that the Rb-Sr age of biotite from the Bald Rock pluton is ca. 290 Ma (cf. 292 Ma biotite age of Pacolet granite). Speer and others (1986) reported mineral chemistry for biotite, amphibole and pyroxene from the Bald Rock granite, and compared their results to mineral chemistry of known Carboniferous plutons of the eastern Piedmont. Vhynal and McSween (1990) used the Al-in-hornblende (7 grains) barometer to estimate a crystallization pressure for the Bald Rock at 4.8+/-0.5 kbar or 18.5+/-2km. Vhynal and McSween (1990) prepared pressure estimates for 14 Carboniferous plutons from both the eastern Piedmont (Carolina slate belt: 10.8-11.6 km depth of emplacement) and central Piedmont (14.2-19.3 km depth of emplacement) and documented the Alleghanian-regional scale warping of isotherms suggested by regional reconnaissance 40Ar/39Ar ages and other mineral ages and proposed by Dallmeyer and others (1986) and Secor and others (1986).
Speer and others (1986) and van Gelder and McSween (1981) present maps of the megacryst and mafic enclave fabric of the Bald Rock pluton. Generally the magmatic foliation is broadly concentric with the pluton margins, but tapered mafic enclaves define an asymmetric, counterclockwise pattern that Speer and others (1986) suggested was a consequence of either irregularities in the magma chamber or emplacement in a left-lateral fault zone. Based on contrasts in metamorphic grade and structural style east and west of the pluton (that will be observed later on this trip), it appears that the Bald Rock did intrude an existing fault zone, however, it has been difficult to evaluate the hypothesis of left-lateral shear along this zone in early Alleghanian time.
This is not the first Carolina Geological Society field trip to visit this site. In 1973 the 34th annual meeting based in Pageland and led by H.D. Wagener and D.E. Howell led a trip titled "Granitic Plutons of the central and eastern Piedmont of South Carolina." This was their stop 10.
The Bald Rock granite has a historical tie. The Union Jail on West Main Street was designed and construction supervised by South Carolina architect Robert Mills (1781-1855) over the period 1822-1823. The original design called for brick construction, however after a problem with the quality of the brick was recognized, Mills ordered the brick torn down, and after learning of the existence of a nearby granite quarry (Humphries quarry west of town, as described by Sloan, 1908 and Wagener, 1977), elected to complete the outside walls with Bald Rock granite. Among Mills' many later accomplishments were the US Treasury Building (1836, completed in 1842), Old Patent Office (now part of the Smithsonian Institution), and the Washington Monument (1836, completed 1884). The Union Jail is still in use and is the oldest functioning jail in the state and the oldest intact public building in the county (Charles, 1987).
Fig 4. View into the Hyder Bald Rock quarry.