Tour of the Secret Quarries of Somerville

Join Somerville resident Robin Hazard Ray on a walk through Somerville’s deep past, beginning and ending at the Somerville Museum. The rocks underlying our city date to a time before the dinosaurs. We will explore the forgotten traces of rock quarries and look at how our handsome bedrock – the Cambridge Argillite ­– was extracted, shaped, and used in the city’s 19th-century fabric. Please wear sturdy walking shoes and bring some water!

Robin Hazard Ray, a 30-year resident of Somerville, studied geology at Brown University before pursuing a career in publishing. She gives tours at Mount Auburn Cemetery, which provides the setting for her crime-fiction novels The Strangers’ Tomb and The Soldiers’ Rest.