Many active quarries are dirty, dusty, muddy, harsh environments. However, just below the dirty veneer can be the most wondrous sights. Image working in the middle of a huge gemstone, where the walls and floor (and sometimes ceilings) pulse with visual and energetic beauty.
This is one, amazing, exposed wall in a travertine quarry, created by hotsprings similar to Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone National Park, or Pamukkale Turkey, or Havasupai, AZ).
And we get to "look inside" and explore!
(I have often run into scientists doing research in quarries' talus/scre/grout piles.)