dolerite
Diabase (), also called dolerite () or microgabbro,
is a mafic, holocrystalline, subvolcanic rock equivalent to volcanic basalt or plutonic gabbro. Diabase dikes and sills are typically shallow intrusive bodies and often exhibit fine-grain ...
stone quarried in the stone quarries (known locally as the 'Quacks') of the
Rowley Hills
The Rowley Hills are a range of hills in the West Midlands county in England. The range comprises Turner's Hill, Bury Hill, Portway Hill and Darby's Hill.West Midlands of the United Kingdom, straddling the border of
Rowley Regis
Rowley Regis ( ) is a town and former municipal borough in Sandwell in the county of the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It forms part of the area immediately west of Birmingham known as the Black Country and encompasses the fou ...
and
Dudley
Dudley ( , ) is a market town in the West Midlands, England, southeast of Wolverhampton and northwest of Birmingham. Historically part of Worcestershire, the town is the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley. In the ...
. The main quarry was on Turner's Hill, and in the 1960s was, in fact, two separate quarries, the Edwin Richards and Hailstone quarries, with a road between them leading to the top of the hill. At that time, hexagonal pillars similar to those of the
Giant's Causeway
The Giant's Causeway () is an area of approximately 40,000 interlocking basalt columns, the result of an ancient volcano, volcanic fissure eruption, part of the North Atlantic Igneous Province active in the region during the Paleogene period. ...
in Northern Ireland could be seen on one of the quarry faces. The Edwin Richards quarry was combined with the Hailstone quarry by removing the disused road between them. It remained active until 2008, operated by Midland Quarry Products.
The Rowley dolerite is an
intrusion
In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...
of late
Carboniferous
The Carboniferous ( ) is a Geologic time scale, geologic period and System (stratigraphy), system of the Paleozoic era (geology), era that spans 60 million years, from the end of the Devonian Period Ma (million years ago) to the beginning of the ...
age in the form of a
lopolith
A lopolith is a large igneous intrusion which is lenticular in shape with a depressed central region. Lopoliths are generally concordant with the intruded strata with dike or funnel-shaped feeder bodies below the body. The term was first defined ...
. The
country rock
Country rock is a music genre that fuses rock and country. It was developed by rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s. These musicians recorded rock records using country themes, vocal sty ...
consists of the Etruria Marl Formation.
The main use of the Rowley Rag stone was in the production of road surfaces and kerbstones.
A
public house
A pub (short for public house) is in several countries a drinking establishment licensed to serve alcoholic drinks for consumption Licensing laws of the United Kingdom#On-licence, on the premises. The term first appeared in England in the ...
in the village of Whiteheath was named after this rock, highlighting the importance of this naturally occurring product in this area of the
Black Country
The Black Country is an area of England's West Midlands. It is mainly urban, covering most of the Dudley and Sandwell metropolitan boroughs, with the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall and the City of Wolverhampton. The road between Wolverhampto ...
.
William Withering
William Withering Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS (17 March 1741 – 6 October 1799) was an English botanist, geologist, chemist, physician and first systematic investigator of the bioactivity of digitalis.
Withering was born in Wellington, S ...
, a member of the
Lunar Society
The Lunar Society of Birmingham was a British dinner club and informal learned society of prominent figures in the Midlands Enlightenment, including industrialists, natural philosophy, natural philosophers and intellectuals, who met regularly b ...
, studied the chemical composition of Rowley Rag, and gave a paper including this study to the
Royal Society
The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, re ...