One of the most abundant minerals in the Earth’s crust, quartz is essential for manufacturing core components of smartphones and computers. Most of the world’s supply comes from a single mining district in the Appalachian Mountains of the southeast United States, which has become an unlikely linchpin of the global tech economy.
In a valley in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, some 800 metres above sea level, lie a few square kilometres that feed the global computer chip industry.
