Aforward-looking site development company is preparing a future commercial site in a rugged corner of Pennsylvania by mining and selling its aggregate, and moving a mobile crusher within the quarry to facilitate the development plan.

The Avondale Quarry, managed by TechniVate Inc., is located in Avondale, Pa., on a site planned for future commercial space, single-family homes and townhouses. But a considerable amount of earth and stone has to be moved to get the site to the proposed building elevations.

TechniVate found that an aggregates processing plant utilizing a new Mobicat MC 120-Z mobile jaw crusher from Kleemann Inc. USA is giving it optimum flexibility in configuring the site for future construction, even as it mines and sells the aggregates.

The quality of the stone varies from hardness to softness across the Avondale quarry.

"Our property is backed right up to an airport, and our goal is to move this mountain down to the road elevation in the front," said Will Mains, quarry manager. "We have a three-to-five year supply of stone here. The property then will be developed with townhouses in the back and commercial property along the road in the front."

Sandstone and bluestone

Avondale is mining mostly sandstone from a complex deposit that changes every few yards. In addition to the sandstone, pure white and rose quartz and mica is present, along with the native Pennsylvania bluestone highly prized for architectural and landscaping applications.

The 14-acre quarry has existed on this 20-acre site for many years, with bluestone veneer panels extracted from it and utilized by dimension stone providers in the vicinity. "It was old-school extraction, with jackhammers chipping away at the face," Mains said. "Another operator pushed all the overburden over the face, then crushed and screened it. But we are the first to take a really big dent out of it."

The Avondale Quarry, managed by TechniVate Inc., is located in Avondale, Pa., and has a three-to five-year supply of stone.

The quality of the stone varies tremendously from hardness to softness across the quarry, Mains said. "The back side of the quarry is mostly sand, but as you get toward the face, it's a harder stone. And the top layer was 'soft' stone, more overburden than anything else." Some of the stone can be used in concrete or asphalt, some can't.

Because the deposit varies so much, TechniVate will mine selectively when given the chance. "If we get into a very good vein, we will follow it so we can have a certain type of stone," Mains said. "But, for right now, with the top layer being really soft, we took the whole lift off and sold it for structural fill. Then we flattened it out. We're now working on our second lift."