Massaponax Plant
The Massaponax Plant is located on Route 1 south of Fredericksburg in Massaponax and is across from Massaponax High School. Production was initiated Massaponax in 2005 and services the growing residential and business communities on the fringes of Northern Virginia.
The City of Fredericksburg and the counties of Spotsylvania, Louisa, and Caroline.
The rock quarried for construction use is a complex blend of igneous and metamorphic rock types. It is referred to as the Po River Metamorphic Suite, the term suite meaning more than one type and metamorphic meaning changed from original composition. The overall rock types are granite-gneiss and biotite-gneiss. Many other intrusions of igneous rocks occurred over time in the Po River Complex making it difficult to date as a unit, but some dating has shown rock older than 410 million years. The granite-gneiss can yield a white to gray color stone while the biotite-gneiss can yield dark gray to black stone. One of the later igneous intrusions is distinctly different in appearance- a reddish granite with large mineral crystals that contrast with the surrounding stone. The geologic events that metamorphosed pre-existing rocks and allowed intrusions by magmas were tectonic events involving the movement of continents; collisions of continents causing metamorphism and their separating allowing magmas to rise from below and intrude existing rock.
