Free Marble!!!

[John Twilley <jtwilley@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Linda,

The region that you are talking about sounds like the Furnace Formation.  It
extends over a wide area near between Big Bear Lake and Lucerne Valley,
including Holcomb Valley.  A hike on the Cougar Crest trail above the north
shore of Big Bear Lake will take you over a steep part of it.  There are very
nice white marbles in some areas (don't poach of public land!) with uniform
coarse grain size.  Far from being a simple limestone, much of it is heavily
metamorphosed.  In the cases that I have tested they are all dolomitic marble,
which means nearly a full step harder on the Mhos scale that typical calcitic
marbles.  Some of them also contain very uniformly distributed, colorless
silicates up to maybe 5% of the stone composition.  It doesn't affect the
appearance but may slightly affect the progress of fine polishing.

Just thought you'd like to know....

John Twilley
Conservation Scientist