Wednesday, May 14, 2014

Geo 730: May 14, Day 500: Glaucophane

Can you believe I'm on #500 already? Seems like only #495...

Above we see some nice isolated crystals of glaucophane, which along with lawsonite, are the diagnostic minerals for blueschist, or as it's sometimes called, glaucophane schist. The micaceous, light-colored mineral is probably mostly chlorite, but there may be some muscovite as well. I don't distinguish reds and greens well, so I can't tell if the mica's apparent green tint is real or an artifact of my poor color acuity. I also can't pick out the garnets easily at this magnification, but they're readily apparent to me, especially to the right of the lens cap, in the full-size image.

Photo unmodified. March 9, 2012. FlashEarth location.

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