Color:  Spanish Diggings Quartzite range from a medium to very light shades of brown, gray, and purple or purplish gray.  May range from fairly homogenous to variegated or banded with alternating light and medium shades.

Texture:  Medium to very fine grain

Luster: Vitreous

Silica Fabrics / Fossils: fine quartz crystals in silica matrix

Patina: Little to none, occasional thin chalky cortex

Heat Treatment:  None

Knapping:  High quality knapping material, semi tough material compared to other more glossy refined cherts

Notes:  Quartzite may contain "anomalous radioactivity" due to trace amounts of uranium and vanadium mineralization in materials from the western, northern, and southern regions fro the Black Hills, South Dakota.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Distribution Comments:

Spanish Diggings Quartzite is associated with the Fall River and Lamoka Formation of the Inyan Kara Group of Wyoming and South Dakota.  Primary outcroppings occur in Flint Hill, Battle Mountain, and Cowboy Hill in South Dakota and Saul Quarry #1, Saul Quarry #5, and Dorsey quarries in Wyoming.