North Street mall, Danbury, Fairfield County, Connecticut, USAi

Regional Level Types
North Street mall	Occurrence
Danbury	Municipality
Fairfield County	County
Connecticut	State
USA	Country

Because they are immediately adjacent and have similar reported mineralogy, this locality is a combination of minerals reported at the mall situated NE of the intersection of Padanaram Road and Hayestown Avenue during its construction and minerals reported by Januzzi (1965, 1976 and 1994) directly west of this intersection. The latter place was reported by Januzzi as "a small commercial site" constructed around 1974. He noted the "considerable removal of rock" at that time.

A few extant buildings could meet this criterion. A review of Danbury tax assessor's records and on-line aerial photographs indicate that the mall was built in 1960, so is too old. An auto repair garage and fueling station, just SW of this intersection on the west side of the intersection of North Street and Padanaram Road, was built in 1964 (Januzzi, 1965). It has retaining walls and cuts into the hill on its west, south and north sides, but also appears too old to be this locality. A third building just NW of this intersection and on the east side of Padanaram Road, currently a bank, was completed in 1976, so this must be the site referred to by Januzzi (1976).

Januzzi proposed that the mineralogy at the "small commercial site" is similar to that found at the lost danburite type locality and went so far as to include danburite in his list of minerals from it, although he never stated actually finding that mineral nor did he describe any examples from there or show any photos of them. The controversy regarding the danburite type locality is discussed at its mindat page http://www.mindat.org/loc-243666.html. This page presents information about minerals he did report finding at the "small commercial site" in their own right. Many are listed as unconfirmed due to a lack of reported details, but many are likely present given the general mineralogy of the area. Little information is recorded about the characteristics of the actual mall site aside from the list provided in Weber and Sullivan (1995), much of which may have actually come from Januzzi. This makes sense considering the bank is within the mall parking lot.

Interestingly, the impure marble assemblages from here have a generally more coarse-grained nature and different mineralogy than that of the typical Stockbridge Marble found in the area. The Cambro-Ordovician Stockbridge tends to be fine-grained and with tremolite and fine-grained phlogopite and chondrodite the primary accessories. Samples from this site are coarser-grained and contain accessory actinolite, spinel, phlogopite, chondrodite and forsterite with a general character similar to the Proterozoic Franklin Marble, especially like samples from the Limecrest Quarry in Sparta, NJ. The bedrock at the locality is actually mapped as Proterozoic Granitic Gneiss, with many such outcrops all around. The Stockbridge underlies an area at least 1/4 mile south. Thus, the marble here may be Proterozoic, and if so would be the only such occurrence in Connecticut. This possibility needs testing.

Coordinates are for the intersection of North Street, Padanaram Road, and Hayestown Avenue.

Other Regions, Features and Areas containing this locality

References