4 November 2012

Animated GIF of the Walker Top Granite

Posted by Callan Bentley

Here’s one of the cool rocks I saw on my pre-GSA-Charlotte field trip to the Neoacadian Inner Piedmont field trip: the protomylonitic Walker Top Granite (~366 Ma crystallization), which was deformed as the terrane it was intruded into got shoved up and to the west (and perhaps the southwest!). Here’s an animated GIF I made to show off one particularly striking bit of float:

The rock is dominated by big potassium feldspars, and they’ve been both aligned and stretched. One feldspar towards the top (outlined below in black) is 15 times as long as it is wide! There are also garnets in the interiors of some of these feldspars.

I’ve got many more photos to share from this trip, but right now, the Sunday morning sessions are about to start, so I’m off to the meeting!