Flatwillow Moss Rock quarry, Montana
Select Stone sources both raw and finished stone products from quarries worldwide.
Central Montana Sandstone Quarries
For more than twenty years, we and our partner ES Stone have quarried sandstone at widely scattered locations across central Montana.
Frontier® Sandstone
Frontier Sandstone is quarried near Harlowton, Montana. From this one stone we make everything from oversize wall stone to stair treads to beautiful sawn rectangular flooring stone.
Flatwillow Moss Rock
Flatwillow Moss Rock comes from a specific 4″- to 10″-thick sandstone layer that is exposed at the surface on the ranches where we quarry this stone. Because it is exposed at the surface, it is weathered and partly covered with lichens. Flatwillow is quarried as natural shape moss rock, as larger mantles and hearths, and as landscape boulders. We also chop Flatwillow slabs into a variety of other products.
Homestead Fieldstone
Starting in the late 1800’s, homesteaders in this part of central Montana have cleared stone from their fields. They often used this same sandstone to build their houses, barns, and root cellars, but most of the stone ended up in piles around the edges of their fields and pastures. These piles are where we get Homestead Fieldstone.
A World of Quarries
Visiting (and photographing) them is one of our favorite parts of the job.
Marble Quarries near Carrara, Italy
The city of Carrara, Italy has been a marble quarrying and carving center since antiquity. The marble quarried in the Apuan Alps near Cararra was used for Michaelagelo’s David and countless statues and structures dating to Roman times. Carrara marble is actively quarried and shipped around the world. The images show active and ancient quarries that can be visited today.
Granite Quarries
To the consternation of geologists, the stone industry groups all crystalline igneous and metamorphic rocks under the heading granite. This isn’t a too bad because the most of these crystalline rocks have similar mechanical properties as building and paving stones. Granites are often quarried in large rectangular blocks that are then sawn down into everything from building stones to countertops.
Basalt Quarries
Basalt is a rock formed when a lava flow hardens on the surface of the earth. When the basalt cools and solidifies it often forms the polygonal columns shown in these images. Basalt is quarried in many parts of the world, including the western U.S.
Limestone Quarries
Limestone, and the related rocks dolomite and travertine, have been quarried for millenia in Europe and the Middle East. Limestone and dolomite mostly formed in shallow, warm marine environments on the continents. Travertine is deposited from hot springs that are rich in calcium carbonate. Modern limestone quarries commonly extract large rectangular quarry blocks or slabs which are then sawn and/or broken down into products.
Sandstone Quarries
Sandstone is the result of the erosion of ancient mountain ranges over billions of years of earth history. As shown in these images, sandstone quarries in the western US typically remove flat slabs and rectangular blocks that are then broken down into products. Sandstone varies tremendously in color, texture and durability. It is perhaps the most difficult stone to evaluate confidently.
Chief Cliff Quarries
The name Chief Cliff is loosely applied to a thick section of geologically related stones quarried in northwestern Montana. Although they vary in color range and shape between the different quarries, all of the Chief Cliff stones are very hard quartzites and argillites from a nearly 1.5-billion-year-old sedimentary deposit known as the Belt Supergroup.
Abandoned Stone Quarries
We like picking around old quarries.
Abandoned Stone Quarries
Granite, sandstone, limestone. They’re all cool.