Thursday, May 17, 2012

Mineralogy and Petrology










Students in grades 2 and 3 explored the granitic pegmatite and its surrounding gneiss at a Topsham quarry where they found specimens of large minerals such as muscovite, biotite, feldspar, albite, and quartz in many colors and almandine garnet.  Students were very excited by this outing.  Plans are to build a rock collection with the samples collected.

Students discovered some interesting textures among the pegmatic rocks, such as this pegmatitic graphic texture created with crystals of quartz and feldspar/albite.