Fortune Boulevard/CENTECH Park construction site, Shrewsbury, Worcester County, Massachusetts, USAi

Regional Level Types
Fortune Boulevard/CENTECH Park construction site	Construction Site
Shrewsbury	Town
Worcester County	County
Massachusetts	State
USA	Country

In a brief time period in 2010 this author had finds on the new road construction at Fortune Blvd 10 m south of the edge of the paved roundabout at the east end. Road builder blasting of the ledge at these places turned up chlorite, epidote, specular hematite, microcline, and pyrite. The road was for an industrial park. Ledge was removed to 3 m deep by drill and blast for water service and storm drains. The mineral site was off the road in the path of a storm drain that trended south away from the actual road building.The sites are paved over or grassed over now and closed to collectors.

What is interesting about this site is that I found a glacial erratic 20 cm long laying on the ground down hill from the road work site 15 years before the road work. I live 300 m from the site and I was hiking in thick woods in 1995 and this rock was just sitting there in the leaf litter on the slope with one side covered with metallic flakes of specular hematite. This rock is typical of the specular hematite found here that were thin expansive flat vertical veins 2 mm thick in gneiss. The road building mineral vein found later in 2010 was just 50 m up the slope from the loose rock I found on the ground so I had concluded that I had a glacial erratic pried loose well in the past. The rock was fully sharp on all edges, not stream tumbled and from nearby.

The site had a aqua green microcline 18 mm long and 6 mm thick. It was not terminated and between layers of cloudy quarts. The pyrite found was cleaved right thru a 6 mm cube. A boulder still visible at a rock pile 50 m southwest has a 25 mm pyrite visible in it.

There is intensely folded and interesting looking gneiss of black and white layers in several boulders at a rock pile to be seen at a sandpit 50 m southwest of the site. A text showing them [1] mentions finding them north of here in Acton, MA.

Another mineral of note at this second site was a 1.0 m ball of white as white can be milky quarts 10 m west of the specular hematite vein. It had no other minerals on its periphery. I left it alone because it was as dangerous as a pile of broken glass with an innocent grab of any piece liable to cut the hands. I tossed all strewn pieces to the center of that rubble and left. The mineral site is under gravel, loam and seed now.

The day I collected I hauled 20 pounds of minerals from this site and walked home 300 m downhill. But first I took a long look at a 5 foot (1.5 m) flat gneiss boulder face turned by the blasting and covered with a 2 mm layer specular hematite like a large flat sheet of metal. It was quite a sight. It was turned into gravel in days as road work progressed. I have contacted the land owner and have hiking permission.
(19 Jan 2013)

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