Schist
Rock made of mica, quartz, feldspar
Common
A medium-grained metamorphic rock full of platy minerals (mica, talc, chlorite or graphite) lined up so that it splits into flakes and plates, often glittering with mica.
Rock
- Kind of rock
- Metamorphic rock
- Rock family
- Schist and gneiss
- Texture
- foliated (splits along its layers)
- Also contains
- Chlorite, Talc, Graphite, Garnet
- How it forms
- Regional metamorphism of medium grade during mountain building, mostly of mudstone, squeezes the rock harder one way than the others.
- Uses
- Local building stone; its planes of weakness make tunnels and slopes treacherous.
Crystallography
- Habits
- Foliated
Physical properties
- Luster
- Pearly, Vitreous
- Colors
- gray, silver gray, green, dark gray
- Transparency
- Opaque
Geology
- Origins
- Metamorphic
- Geography
- worldwide, USA (Manhattan)
Classification
- Rarity
- Common
- Gem quality
- No
Sources
- Schist. Wikipedia.
- S. Robertson, BGS Rock Classification Scheme, Volume 2: Classification of metamorphic rocks (Research Report RR 99-02). British Geological Survey, 1999.
Browse the Crystal Encyclopedia — MGS Toolbox