Blue Granite
Adopted in 1969.
The General Assembly by Act No. 345 of 1969, adopted the Blue Granite as the official stone of the State. The Act stated that "the blue granite stone of this State has been widely used to beautify all areas of South Carolina.
Among the most popular, the hardest, and the oldest of geosymbols, granite is an official symbol of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, North Carolina, South Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Granite is an igneous rock, which means that at one time during it's development, it was melted like volcanic lava.
Unlike molten lava however, it was unable to escape to the surface. It remained trapped, below ground where it slowly cooled and crystallised, resulting in a very uniform speckled stone that can range in colours from black and grey, to pink abd blue, brown and red.
North Carolina is blessed with an abundance of granite. When granite is crushed, it is used as an aggregate for road building and construction. If granite has the right physical properties, it can be cut into block and used for monuments, curbstone and stone for building facings. The largest open-face granite quarry in the world is located at Mount Airy, North Carolina.
This quarry measures one mile long and 1,800 feet in width. It produces gleaming high quality granite that is unblemished and without interfering seams to mar its splendor. It is used as a building material and in laboratory uses requiring stone with supersmooth surfaces.
Buildings made of North Carolina granite include the Wright Brothers Memorial at Kitty Hawk, the gold depository at Fort Knox, the Arlington Memorial Bridge, and numerous courthouses.
Granite has "chunks" of other rock mixed in kind of like a chocolate chip cookie with M & Ms. You'll typically find quartz, feldspar, mica, and hornblende folded into it. It splits evenly into large pieces and is used for monuments and buildings. However, most granite quarried in the state is crushed and used in highway construction. Sometimes big, irregular blocks of granite are used to build jetties along the coast. Granite deposits are found in the Midlands and the Upstate.
South Carolina 2002 Code of Laws
SECTION 1-1-620. Official State stone.
Blue granite is the official stone of the State.
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