The largest Spruce Pine mine is owned by Sibelco ... From above, they look like giant white sandy beaches. The area is set back from the local North Toe River, which flooded.

An aerial look at the quartz mines in Spruce Pine, North Carolina ... activities to restart operations as soon as we can,” the mine owner, Sibelco, wrote in an update Friday.

The world’s main producer of high-purity quartz, a mineral crucial to the global supply of semiconductor chips, announced its shuttered Spruce Pine ... as we can,” the mine owner, Sibelco ...

“Our dedicated teams are on-site, conducting cleanup and repair activities to restart operations as soon as we can,” the mine ... sells its white quartz sand under the brand name IOTA, which the ...

Cleanup and repair activities are underway at the Spruce Pine mine and restoring power remains crucial, Sibelco said in a statement on Friday. It did not provide a timeline for a reopening.

Now cooled and worn, the rocks around Spruce Pine has the look of a dirty snowball thanks to a combination of feldspar, mica, and quartz. When ground up, it just looks like white sand, but when ...