Picture of Mica Slab.. for Terratoonie

You can see the beauty in it Lori.

Wow... thanks for posting this Lori ..
just imagine digging that out of the garden !

What size is this chunk please ?
I can see the yellow numbers ..
do they indicate size ?

The yellow squares are square inches, Terra. This is a very large chunk. I was so surprised to find it in the soil..Had already found other chunks which were not as large as this one. It's so odd because it is among the rocks which are heavy to the hand...but the pieces of mica are light as air. The vermiculite we use in our gardens is this mineral cut and expanded. Vermiculite is also used as insulation in homes.

http://www.mineralszone.com/minerals/mica.html

Thanks for the extra info..
very exciting to dig up this piece...
are you on the look-out for more Mica each time you are gardening ?
Are there other interesting minerals hidden in the earth around your garden ?

I thought it was going to be a bear footprint from the thumbnail pic before i clicked on it, do you get bears so close to human habitation where you are?
Lovely chunk of mica, it must be difficult to splice it so thin without it shattering.

It's interesting how thumb nail photos sometimes looks like something very different to the enlargement .. it is rather similar to the shape of a bear footprint !

Yes Terra and especially because i have a feeling that Lori mentioned bears having bn on her land in the past....

spooky ! ;o)

Yes, we have bears, wolves, otters, mink, muskrat, turkeys, turkey vultures, eagles, hawks, moose, deer, squirrels, and the farmer has a llama and goats, but strangely no rabbits! My favourite by far are the otters... I saw one during the flood last spring but couldn't get to my camera fast enough... he was heading down stream with the rushing current and wasting no time! He was large too...I would guess about 36-40 inches from tail tip to nose! The only reason I saw him was because he didn't want to go thro the culvert and hopped out onto the bank..crossed our driveway and right back into the stream again...it took about 2 seconds!
have discovered that the best way to separate the strata is to use an iron...or a burnisher...to create heat which causes the layers to lift apart. Have to contact the Registrar of Deeds to find out if we have mineral rights to our land. There is a lot of mica in the sand and it has to be part of the crust because it is in our water. The mica in the water is crushed silica/mica. it's black and shines golden in the light. I know that there are huge veins of quartzite throughout the igneus rocks, basalt, red and white quartz, mica, and I have photos of what I think is garnets in a rock on the side of our hill.

Such an interesting comment, Lori ...
I hope you have mineral rights ... I was going to ask if the minerals such as the mica are immediately obvious, i.e. clean, or if you have to wash off mud etc. to see which rocks are there. Are there any blue-coloured minerals on your land ?
Re. the lack of rabbits, surely not strange because they would be prey for the many larger birds and animals around ?

wish I could dig up something similar in my garden! full marks for recognising it and putting it to good use

In england miners in the leadmines used to find shiny upieces of minerals, called them their "bonny bits" , they were a perk of the job, the only nice thing about a miners job i would think, being a miner was horrendous! In their spare time some of them put them in special cases which were often made by the miners themselves, called "spar boxes" .
They differed from yours as the pieces were left whole and displsyed in a theatrical way so as to portray grottos. Some cld be so big that a man could fit inside when split open, and others the size of marbles. The boxes had a glass side as well. This is a link to the website of the Killhope lead mine in county Durham, many pics of sparboxes and the history of a leadmine and the miners who worked her.
http://www.killhope.org.uk/Pages/WhatsHere.aspx

Are you thinking of Labradorite when you asked about blue coloured rocks, Terra? Answer is no I have not found any as yet. There are two colours of mica the black and the white (or Muscovite). Have found some absolutely spectacular crystals but haven't had time to do the research.
I was hoping to see the Spar boxes, Marianne. I found the site ok..but got a 404 error message when I tried to access the image. Speaking of lead there is a large graphite mine about 40 kms. from here. Will do a google later... Thanks for the link.
The piece of mica was covered in dirt and I thought that it was a chunk of plastic or something similar because it was so light. Mica is very light weight. It apparently occurs in large veins or pools. So much "fill" has been dumped on our property that I can't be sure that it didn't come here by truck!

Hi Lori ..
I wasn't sure which blue coloured rocks you might find .. Labradorite or others .. perhaps you'll find some yet ...

yes, it must sometimes be very confusing as to which items have been dumped on your property, but originated elsewhere. Hoping for more of your mineral and crystal photos please.

Very interesting Lori...and very beautiful too! Keep digging, there's bound to be some Gold in there! :)

LOL...Iron pyrites...fool's gold they call it, Karen. I have seen it, but haven't found any around here.
Labradorite is a beautiful blue, Terra.
I googled the "spar boxes" Marianne. Amazing. It must be very unhealthy to mine lead.