A small amount of dimension stone was quarried on the south side of Highway 3A, 2 kilometres west of Nelson.
The quarry is developed in a 15 metre high knoll of granodiorite of the Middle to Late Jurassic Nelson Intrusions on the southeastern margin of the Nelson batholith. Between Nelson and the Kootenay River bridge, west of Nelson, the stone is grey, coarse grained and gneissic in some exposures and shattered in others.
A discontinuous sheeting, spaced at 8 to 100 centimetres, strikes southwest parallel to the highway and dips 15 degrees southeast at the quarry site. A major joint set strikes parallel to the sheeting and dips at right angles to it. A second set strikes 005 degrees and dips 85 degrees west.
The stone is a fine to medium-grained, light grey granodiorite with a somewhat variable colour, that takes on a high gloss and shows very few incipient cracks under oblique light. The rock is marred by a number of black knots, up to 2.5 centimetres in diameter, and develops a brown iron oxide stain on weathered surfaces. Good size blocks with a uniform texture and free of blemishes, can still be obtained. A sample analyzed as follows (CANMET Report 452, pages 110, 111, sample 1524):
--------------------------------------------
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
Specific gravity 2.676
Crushing strength (dry) (lbs/sq.in.) 36,608
Transverse strength (lbs/sq.in.) 2,158
Shearing strength (lbs/sq.in.) 2,610
Canadian Marble and Granite Company quarried a few blocks for monument purposes in the early 1900's, up to about 1916. The quarry was operated intermittently by the Nelson Granite and Monumental Company through the 1950's, producing blocks for monumental dies and bases. Some stone was also used in several buildings in Nelson. In 1955, the quarry was 15 metres long, 12 metres wide and 10 metres high. No production figures are available.
