Plum Run Chert (Northern Ohio Paleo Lithic)

[uniface]

I found this stuff (highlights only quoted) in a print-out of a report on the Frank (or Franks) site in northern Ohio posted in 2001 on a long-gone website. Probably nothing really new, but of probable value to newer collectors in Ohio & thereabouts. FWIW

The Plum Run quarries are in Alliance, Ohio. Commonly green, yellow, tan or a mix of these colors; occasionally off-white to translucent black. Local one foot-thick sheet of high quality material in the Vanport flint bed along with Flint Ridge proper. Weathers (patinates) to a mauve purple color. Found in a few counties around the quarry. Plum Run & Pipe Creek chert comprise 10 % of the lithics at Paleo Crossing site (Medina Co.); Nobles Pond (paleo) site only one artifact of it. At Berlin Lake, close to the quarry, Plum Run is found mostly as flakes, tools being mainly Upper Mercer & Flintridge (lithic re-supply site). At Walborn Reservoir. PR also occurs as flakes and tools; avoided for cores and blades (UM & FR chosen for those).

 

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[ToddsPoint]

Wasn't the Plum Run quarry destroyed? Mined for limestone? Gary

 

[uniface]

That's what I read in a report on it in somebody's blog (with a photo) -- might still be posted somewhere.

 

[uniface]

The Plum Run Chert Quarries

https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/38912/Plum_Run.pdf?..

 

[joshuaream]

Interesting stuff. I see the chert type name used pretty regularly, and about the only way I really recognize it is when I see a fresh plow strike with the grey/blue interior and a brown/red/pink/mauve colored patinated surface.

 

[Buckleberry]

I am very close to that area and have at least one point I suspect is made from Plum Run Chert, it has a decidedly mauve/purplish color. Let me see if I can find it as my collection is split at the moment, I may have pics of it already.