Barton Garnet Quarry at Gore Mountain 360 by Ron Schott

Canon EOS 550D (T2i)

GigaPan Epic100 (2nd generatio...

This is the main quarry at Gore Mountain famous for its huge almandine garnets. The host rock is an amphibolite that experienced granuite or near granulite facies metamorphism. The dark color of the rock comes from the mineral hornblende, which is abundant, along with the red garnet porphyroblasts and less abundant white plagioclase. Mining at this site was ceased when the pit to the left of center encountered groundwater in such abundance that it couldn't be economically pumped away fast enough. Today the quarry is operated as a tourist attraction for budding mineralogists. Modern day garnet production is from the Ruby Mountain quarry a few miles away.

This GigaPan was shot as a 360 degree panorama, but the Stitch software initially had troubles with that. There may be many reasons for this - I shot this panorama with some significant pauses due to partly cloudy conditions. I had intended to continue the pan further downwards to capture more of the foreground, but the uncooperative weather conditions finally forced me to throw in the towel.

This GigaPan is a restitch of www.gigapan.org/gigapans/86334