Hurricane Helene dropped more than 2 feet of rain on Spruce Pine, N.C. The town is home to one of the world's only sources of high-purity quartz, which is used to manufacture silicon chips and ...

A quartz mine run by Sibelco in Spruce Pine. Sibelco is Belgian-owned, and responsible for 70 to 90 percent of the market share of high-purity quartz, according to experts.