Fisk Quarry Preserve
Quarry Rd
Isle La Motte, VT
A quiet, flooded old quarry on a Lake Champlain island whose stone walls preserve the Chazy reef, one of the oldest fossil reefs known anywhere on Earth, formed by creatures that lived roughly 480 million years ago.
Fisk Quarry looks at first like what it once was: a small flooded quarry where black-and-gray Isle La Motte stone was cut for buildings across the country. But the walls of that quarry expose something extraordinary, the Chazy reef, a fossilized coral-and-sponge reef built by living creatures in a warm tropical sea roughly 480 million years ago, among the oldest such reefs known on the planet.
That the island was once tropical, and once far south of the equator, is a lesson in how much the Earth moves over deep time. Today the preserve is a hushed, easy-walking spot on Vermont's most remote lake island, where a visitor can put a hand on rock older than fish, older than forests, older than almost anything with a backbone.
What Guests Love
- Standing on rock that was a tropical reef nearly half a billion years ago
- Spotting fossil corals and sea creatures in the quarry walls and ledges
- The peaceful, birdsong-filled setting of the flooded quarry
- The deep quiet of Vermont's most remote lake island
Worth Knowing
- The fossils are protected; look and photograph but do not collect or damage the stone
- Trails are short and easy, but wear sturdy shoes for uneven quarry ground
- The preserve is free and open seasonally; it is a low-key nature site, not a staffed attraction
- Pair it with the nearby Goodsell Ridge preserve for more of the same reef
Details
Isle La Motte, VT
Learn about Fisk Quarry Preserve
A reef in the rock
Around 480 million years ago, in the Ordovician period, the land that is now Isle La Motte lay near the equator under a shallow tropical sea. In that warm water, colonies of early reef-building animals, sponges, snails, corals, and squid-like cephalopods, grew and died and piled up over millions of years into a reef.
The reef hardened into limestone, and the slow drift of continents carried it thousands of miles north to Vermont. When quarriers cut into the stone, they sliced through the ancient reef, and its fossils, coils, whorls, and honeycomb shapes, are visible in the walls and ledges today.
The stone that built cities
The dark, fossil-flecked stone of Isle La Motte, often called black marble though it is technically limestone, was prized for its beauty and durability. It was quarried here for well over a century and shipped out to become floors, facades, and monuments in buildings across the United States.
Fisk Quarry was one of the island's working pits. When quarrying ended, the excavation slowly filled with water, and in the 1990s a local effort protected it as a preserve, recognizing that its walls held a scientific treasure far older than any building the stone had raised.
The quiet island
Isle La Motte is the smallest and least developed of the Champlain Islands, a place of stone walls, hayfields, apple trees, and lake horizons. Along with the reef, it holds St. Anne's Shrine, on the site where French soldiers built a fort and Vermont's first European settlement in 1666.
The Abenaki traveled and fished these island waters long before that, and the Abenaki remain part of Vermont's present. The island's slow pace and its ancient stone make it feel a little outside of ordinary time.
Season by season
Late spring through fall is the time to visit, when the trails are dry and the quarry pool mirrors the sky. Summer is peaceful and green, and autumn brings quiet color to the island's back roads.
The preserve is a warm-season nature site and effectively closes for the deep winter, when the island empties out and the lake ices over. Any visit rewards a slow, attentive look at the stone underfoot.
Closest Boutels
The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.
Things to Do Near Isle La Motte
Goodsell Ridge Preserve
About 1 mile, a 3 minute drive
More of the Chazy reef exposed across open ledges, with interpretive trails and a small fossil education center.
St. Anne's Shrine
About 2 miles, a 5 minute drive
A lakeside shrine on the site of Vermont's first European settlement and its 1666 French fort.
Alburgh Dunes State Park
About 12 miles, a 25 minute drive
A rare natural sand beach with a dune system and bog boardwalk on the Alburgh peninsula.