Garnets are actually a family of minerals which are all very similar.  These minerals are often found in metamorphic rocks such as schist.  Garnet is fairly hard and is a 6.5 to 7.5 on the Mohs hardness scale which has a range from 1 (softest) to 10 (hardest).  These minerals often form as dodecahedrons and trapezohedrons but can also form in groups or masses of crystals.  Garnets have a colorless , a glassy luster, and will fracture if broken.  There are actually six types of garnets:

• almandine (red to violet red color)
• spessartite (yellowish orange to reddish brown color)
• pyrope (dark red color)
• grossular (green yellow, reddish orange color)
• andradite (colorless, yellow, green, or brown to black color)
• uvarovite (brilliant green color)

The garnets which are often used as gemstones are typically a dark red color; however, the brilliant green of uvarovite is rare and very prized.  Garnet is the birthstone of January and the gemstone of the second wedding anniversary.

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Question:

Answer: You may be referring to “foliation” which is the layering within a metamorphic rock. Foliation occurs when there is a strong pressure applied to the rock in one direction, just like when you put your hands flat together and push. When this pressure is applied, certain minerals, like mica and chlorite, grow with their long direction perpendicular to the pressure. This make the rock appear with layering and/or banding.  This garnet schist shows a foliation of the mica mineral.

Garnet Schist is a beautiful gray, silvery or brown colored metamorphic rock which shiny mica layers and an abundance of well-formed garnet crystals.  Garnet schist is the same rock as a mica schist with the exception of the inclusion of the garnets (too cool!).  The original rock type is typically a clayey rock with some calcite content such as a siltstone or a mudstone.  The major minerals in a schist are quartz and mica.  During the compression of the rock (metamorphism) the mica grains, which are thin and flat, are squeezed into sheet-like layers and give a silky, shiny appearance to the rock.  The texture of a schist is usually fine-grained; however, in a garnet schist the garnet crystals are large enough to be seen by the naked eye and appear to be “floating” in the schist rock.  If schist rocks are broken, they will bread into wavy surfaces.  Get your sample of Garnet Schist today!

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