Wow, a Nick Z celebrity appearance! Thanks for sharing my channel with your folks, Nick. It's been fun to share the Earth's stories with folks while travelling and doing things I normally do. Thanks for all your great work. It would be fun to do a video together the next time our paths cross.
I'm a lapidarist, so the more I understand in the field, the better my collecting goes. I really appreciate this series of videos you've kindly given us. Excellent work!
It has taken me 3 decades to learn enough English to being able to tell apart the different kinds of feldpars thanks to this excellently explained video (never give up folks!:D). Thanks a lot!!!
Great series. It is very helpful to have so many examples shown to us. I can spot quartz now! I have seen feldspar many times, but I can now name it. There are so many definitions, so just keep going over the main terms and it might just sink in. Thanks so much for your time and effort in doing these.
Just discovered your channel and love it. I was a petroleum geologist from the late 1970s-80s, but got away completely. I’m trying to re-educate myself because geology used to be a great love of mine. Videos like this really help. Thank you.
I learn a lot from each video. The samples and your descriptions are the best part...I can actually see how quartz and K-spar and plag are different in each rock. The tripod worked really well, by the way.
Thanks for this series. I am saving them to a playlist. I will need to go over the feldspar a good number of times. You are making it so clear it is easy for me to see after you point them out. At age 74 I have do lots of repeat to remember these new details. I have many rocks that found their way home on my trips around the US. When all this snow melts I need to get the bigger ones out of my garden. I still have a fossil bearing rock I collected at age 12 along the Potomac River. With your help I should be able to identify the ones I didn't know what they are. I have a few small ones that are on top of potting soil in house plants. They are easy to get to.
These videos ARE very helpful. Last summer I found a large chunk (>50lbs) of aligned feldspar crystals about 1.5 cm X 1 cm X 0.5 cm in a sand/clay like matrix. Colors of the crystals are mostly off white with some blue hints in parts. One can see dots of aluminum(I think) along many faces. I didn't know what it was but someone in a FB group I belong to Identified it as feldspar. It is an anomaly in our area of central New York as the area where I found it is predominantly reddish sandstone. The individual crystals separate from the oblong ball quite easily. It was an exciting find as we had two of our grandchildren with us and had to go back to the house for tools to dig it up. All that was showing above the soil was a blue hued crystal mound about the size of half a softball. We were quite surprised how big it ended up being. Thank you for putting the effort in to this series
Well, I have to tell you that I found PLAG crystals in basalt from Steens Mtn in southern Oregon last month! I had read in Marli Miller’s Roadside Guide about plagioclase then in Ellen Bishop’s Hiking Oregon’s Geology she said to look for “turkey-track” basalts. We found them and I have a small sample. I would normall, pre-Willsey, have said these are quartz. But now I see they are rectangular, and catch the light on their planes. They rock look just like your Idaho basalt with Plag in it. Cool stuff. So, just like you said, we all have samples of rocks here just waiting to understand them. You are helping a great deal.
Dr Willsey, thank you so much for helping me to sort out the feldspars. I had tried to teach myself using that triangle before, but got more confused with the terms alkali etc. Your two classes with K-spar (felsic and pinker) and Plag (milky white, intermediate) has me sorted out now. I can “see” the feldspars now! Yay. Also can tell them from quartz: I used to call everything white as quartz. Whoops. Cleavage planes and striations, softer. Eyeballs! Got it! Thanks tons.
I am so grateful for all of your educational videos. I'm a huge fan and happy that you create such informative and complicated content but break it down so I can understand it. You are an awesome teacher and I had to take a moment to thank you for all that I've learned and all that I've yet to discover. Thank you!
A wonderful series Shawn! We just joined and look forward to going back to the beginning and watching all the videos. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
Very interesting. I have found clear feldspar crystals, sometimes as granite outcrops. Most have a chatoyancy on one of the cleavage planes. I polished two stones, about 20 mm X 12 mm as cabochons. Originally they were one stone that I sawed in half, so they are bookends. They are a pinkish moonstone, with nice, white chatoyancy showing. I have also bought white and blue moonstones, but I don't know where they originated.
Re-watching again. Watched the first time a couple days ago. One of the great take aways for me from was the cleavage plain characteristics. The part about where even tiny crystals mixed in with other minerals, show that they are a mineral with cleavage characteristics as evidenced by their light reflection properties. Quickly lending to the identification process. Very cool.
Wonderful. I wish I could retain it all. Easy to understand though. I have been doing rock and mineral studies for about three months after fining a beautiful rock in my large yard. There is so much to learn.
What i can say.. just thank you a lot, iam a geologist i haven't wark yet but i was worked a few months in company as a drill geologist in DD & RC, i like my job and i want to be a field exploration geologist, in past that is difficult cuze i haven't material and i live in horizontal area with nothing to explore. But you is a best chance to learn, i will try my best to be what i want to be.. thank you again ❤
How do plagioclase crystals grow so large in the basaltic extrusive rock shown in video? Why only plagioclase? How long would the cooling process continue before the minerals froze at this size? Thanks.
I’m glad someone else caught that! I had to look up how PORPHYRIES (porphyry, porphyritic rock) happen to be able to wrap my head around this! It turns out that not all magmas are created equal.
Great questions. So, magma compositions vary considerably from silica rich (felsic) to silica poor (mafic). Depending on the initial magma composition (which is also tied somewhat to the temperature of the magma), the mineral with the highest melting point temperature will crystallize first. Surrounded by melt, these minerals have space to form large, well defined crystals. If conditions change (increased gas content, buoyancy, removal of overlying pressure) such that the magma rapidly ascends and erupts, the remaining material (melt), crystallizes quickly around the large crystals to make the porphyritic texture. I'll cover this more when I cover igneous rocks but hopefully that helps for now.
it is not recommended to eat the canned corn if you found feldspar or any other foreign particles in it. The presence of such foreign substances indicates a potential quality or safety issue with the product. It's better to err on the side of caution and avoid consuming it. As mentioned earlier, you should contact the manufacturer and follow their instructions regarding the inciden
Yes, thumbs up for the triangle of the Na-K-Ca because it is a reminder that it is all a gradation--kind of like people in real life, everyone is a little bit of everything, just the amount. And I am SO happy to finally see a chunk of Feldspar. (How can you live 64 years and never see one??). Are these chunks common to find, or are feldspars largely just found as part of another rock? Thank you!
Thanks for watching. Feldspars are very common in igneous and metamorphic rocks but are typically smaller sized crystals. Finding large pure chunks is less common but possible.
Just starting this video... and can I say it is a bit weird that the same minerals we need to eat - potassium, iron, calcium etc - are found in rocks?? hmmm... I am thinking now that MAYBE my purple rocks might be a type of granite. they sort of look like that reddish rock you have there from the grand canyon. and I see quartz in them too or at least in one of them. very fine grained too. very sparkly. one side of one rock seems to have almost invisible banding, or those striation? but mine are definitely purple. like a dark color. and one of my other mystery rocks is definitely granite as it has the black spots on it. on the previous video (quartz) you showed a rock that had a band of quartz going through it. well I have one of those! It must be why I had picked it up. because it looked different. also have two tiny pieces of some type of purple quartz crystals I had found on a beach here. see through kind. I didn't know that magma chambers COULD dry up! and they turn into granite??! Boy, I sure hope that huge magma chamber under Idaho that goes to Yellowstone dries up!! then people wouldn't have to worry about it going BOOM. Mary Greeley is always talking about it rumbling and how ryolite is explosive. she makes it sound like its going to blow any moment and shows seismographs. I learned not to watch her. but I do watch Dutchsinse. did you know he can predict earthquakes? he is right most of the time too. its kind of strange a rock sitting on your table (or maybe the table itself if its granite) was actually a big pool of magma! how weird!!
It seems that as soon as you learn something you have more questions. I learned that I have a chunk of K-spar about 2 inches by 1.5 inches and very pristine with many planes and translucent. Now I have to wonder how this specimen came to be where I found it. It was found on eroded hillside in east central Indiana and was about 30 feet from an outcrop of Limestone bedrock. It must have been moved a long distance from it's formation but it is large with many corners and flats intact. I never had much interest in geology until I started to figure out how the specimens I have found got to where I found them. Most of the interesting rocks I find seem to have been moved by glacier but from where? I feel sorry for Shawn because most of what he finds out west is right where it formed and far too easy to figure out.I have to wonder 'did this come from the bottom of lake Huron or is it a locally formed metamorphic'?
Larger crystals form when magma is underground, prior to eruption. Slow cooling allows for more elements to migrate, bond with other elements, and begin to form crystals that get larger as more elements are attracted and bond to the crystal lattice.
What does the word plagioclase actually mean? I looked it up in many a place, and I'm still none the wiser. It seems to relate to the way feldspar breaks apart, but don't all feldspars have planes at 90°, not just those that are plagioclase?
Good eye! The gneiss to migmatite back to igneous rock series is a spectrum so it sometimes gets tricky where to classify those in-between kind of rocks. To me, the last rock is a true gneiss. Migmatites form when partial melting occurs so you start to get some igneous bands (granite) amongst the darker metamorphic rocks. Here, the light material still looks like felsic minerals like K-spar but no igneous textures. Just my $0.02.
Thanks so much for the mineral series!” Flesh-colored” is not necessarily appropriate anymore.. especially for those of us who aren’t “peachy” colored…
Way to go, Shawn! This one is especially good.
Wow, a Nick Z celebrity appearance! Thanks for sharing my channel with your folks, Nick. It's been fun to share the Earth's stories with folks while travelling and doing things I normally do. Thanks for all your great work. It would be fun to do a video together the next time our paths cross.
Thanks to the both of you. The world makes much more sense now.
@@nemophilistfun Agreed! Ned Zinger, Shawn Willsey and also Myron Cook and Steve Baumann - RUclips is becoming a geology nerd's playground :) ⛏
@@Panicagq2 Rock Supergroup -- like Emerson, Lake & Palmer -- Zinger, Willsey, Cook and Baumann....
What would cause.feldspars
to.crystalise basalt.bed about six feet thick . They would be.2-3".,long and about an 1 -11/2 diameter.
I'm a lapidarist, so the more I understand in the field, the better my collecting goes. I really appreciate this series of videos you've kindly given us. Excellent work!
It has taken me 3 decades to learn enough English to being able to tell apart the different kinds of feldpars thanks to this excellently explained video (never give up folks!:D). Thanks a lot!!!
Excellent!
I’m liking this series. Thanks. I’m recommending it to friends and family.
I appreciate you spreading the word and supporting the channel.
Great series. It is very helpful to have so many examples shown to us. I can spot quartz now! I have seen feldspar many times, but I can now name it. There are so many definitions, so just keep going over the main terms and it might just sink in. Thanks so much for your time and effort in doing these.
Just discovered your channel and love it. I was a petroleum geologist from the late 1970s-80s, but got away completely. I’m trying to re-educate myself because geology used to be a great love of mine. Videos like this really help. Thank you.
So awesome that I can help you reconnect with geology again. Enjoy perusing all the videos here while I get out and make new ones.
Things you only hear geologists say: "Wow. This one has a really big, sexy, K-spar crystal in it!" 😂
He was staring at the cleavage, I saw it!
I'm learning a lot every time you have these videos. Thank you so much.
I learn a lot from each video. The samples and your descriptions are the best part...I can actually see how quartz and K-spar and plag are different in each rock. The tripod worked really well, by the way.
Thank you for your kind sharing of your expertise. When I make some money I’ll send some. You definitely deserve.
Well done, so interesting. 👏
Thx for sharing, your work is appreciated.
Thanks Valorie. It's rewarding to help and learn from folks. Thanks for your continued support.
Love your videos, Shawn keep the helpful videos coming it helps all us rock hounds
Very helpful! Barnes & Nobles has both books; I ordered the Simon & Schusters’ version.
Thanks for the advice!
Thanks for this series. I am saving them to a playlist. I will need to go over the feldspar a good number of times. You are making it so clear it is easy for me to see after you point them out. At age 74 I have do lots of repeat to remember these new details. I have many rocks that found their way home on my trips around the US. When all this snow melts I need to get the bigger ones out of my garden. I still have a fossil bearing rock I collected at age 12 along the Potomac River. With your help I should be able to identify the ones I didn't know what they are. I have a few small ones that are on top of potting soil in house plants. They are easy to get to.
I was cutting augen gneiss last week. I found it as glacial till, now river cobbles. I got several color blends with augens. Really pretty stuff!
These videos ARE very helpful. Last summer I found a large chunk (>50lbs) of aligned feldspar crystals about 1.5 cm X 1 cm X 0.5 cm in a sand/clay like matrix. Colors of the crystals are mostly off white with some blue hints in parts. One can see dots of aluminum(I think) along many faces. I didn't know what it was but someone in a FB group I belong to Identified it as feldspar. It is an anomaly in our area of central New York as the area where I found it is predominantly reddish sandstone. The individual crystals separate from the oblong ball quite easily. It was an exciting find as we had two of our grandchildren with us and had to go back to the house for tools to dig it up. All that was showing above the soil was a blue hued crystal mound about the size of half a softball. We were quite surprised how big it ended up being. Thank you for putting the effort in to this series
Well, I have to tell you that I found PLAG crystals in basalt from Steens Mtn in southern Oregon last month! I had read in Marli Miller’s Roadside Guide about plagioclase then in Ellen Bishop’s Hiking Oregon’s Geology she said to look for “turkey-track” basalts. We found them and I have a small sample. I would normall, pre-Willsey, have said these are quartz. But now I see they are rectangular, and catch the light on their planes. They rock look just like your Idaho basalt with Plag in it. Cool stuff. So, just like you said, we all have samples of rocks here just waiting to understand them. You are helping a great deal.
So cool that I was a small part in helping you with your geology adventure. Thanks!
Great! I'm from granite country: Southern Calif, and now I know more what I'm looking at. Thanks.
These are the best videos I've ever seen
Thank you for a well done presentation. I look forward to more from you in the future.
Gneiss work, Wilsey!
Dr Willsey, thank you so much for helping me to sort out the feldspars. I had tried to teach myself using that triangle before, but got more confused with the terms alkali etc. Your two classes with K-spar (felsic and pinker) and Plag (milky white, intermediate) has me sorted out now. I can “see” the feldspars now! Yay. Also can tell them from quartz: I used to call everything white as quartz. Whoops. Cleavage planes and striations, softer. Eyeballs! Got it! Thanks tons.
So great to hear that my little video helped you out.
I am so grateful for all of your educational videos. I'm a huge fan and happy that you create such informative and complicated content but break it down so I can understand it. You are an awesome teacher and I had to take a moment to thank you for all that I've learned and all that I've yet to discover. Thank you!
Much appreciated. Glad you like these.
Thanks Shaun great revision for me of what I learnt 50 years ago 👍👍
A wonderful series Shawn! We just joined and look forward to going back to the beginning and watching all the videos. Thank you for sharing your knowledge!
Thanks for subscribing. Enjoy the existing videos and look for new ones soon.
First year geologist and I'm learning so much thank you❤🥰
Very interesting. I have found clear feldspar crystals, sometimes as granite outcrops. Most have a chatoyancy on one of the cleavage planes. I polished two stones, about 20 mm X 12 mm as cabochons. Originally they were one stone that I sawed in half, so they are bookends. They are a pinkish moonstone, with nice, white chatoyancy showing. I have also bought white and blue moonstones, but I don't know where they originated.
Re-watching again. Watched the first time a couple days ago. One of the great take aways for me from was the cleavage plain characteristics. The part about where even tiny crystals mixed in with other minerals, show that they are a mineral with cleavage characteristics as evidenced by their light reflection properties. Quickly lending to the identification process. Very cool.
Perfect, Shawn! Thanks. Looking forward to the micas.
That was so beneficial. Now I can recognize the composition of rocks, especially igneous one. Thanks.
Wonderful. I wish I could retain it all. Easy to understand though. I have been doing rock and mineral studies for about three months after fining a beautiful rock in my large yard. There is so much to learn.
Glad it was helpful!
Really enjoying the mineral descriptions episodes. Great video. My favorite feldspar is labradorite.
I learned a lot from the presentation. Quartz I was somewhat familiar with. Feldspars, hardly at all so thanks for this lesson!
Love the maps and images on the walls. The only reason I would ever want to have a big house is so I could have a wall of such things!
LOVE FELDSPAR found some Perthite and Peristerite in the old Perth quarry ,,,Perth Ontario Canada
These videos are excellent. Thank you!
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Sending these mineral and
Rock videos to all my rock hounding friends too. Thanks for the instruction!
Great news. Thanks for spreading the word to folks. Much appreciated.
What i can say.. just thank you a lot, iam a geologist i haven't wark yet but i was worked a few months in company as a drill geologist in DD & RC, i like my job and i want to be a field exploration geologist, in past that is difficult cuze i haven't material and i live in horizontal area with nothing to explore. But you is a best chance to learn, i will try my best to be what i want to be.. thank you again ❤
Thanks! We really enjoy your videos.
Glad you like them!
From India just preparing for semester exam of geosciences lab tomorrow 🙂
Sir you explained it really well
Keep going ❤
Love your work Brother 👍🏻❤️
Thanks for the instruction. IF i had it to do over, i would go into geology instead of education. Always loved the field.
Great class on feldspar!
Thank you for your kind donation. Glad you enjoyed this.
Simon and Schuster book is available in the UK at least as the Macdonald encyclopedia of rocks and minerals.
መምህር ትልቅ እውቀት በአጭርና በሚገባ የጉደለኝየምትሞላ የእኔ የእውቀት አባቴ ስለሆንክ ፈጣሪ ከነቤተሰቦቻቸው እረጅም እድሜ ጤና በእውቀትህ ተጠቅመህወገንህን የምትጠቀምበት ለአለምአዲስ ነገር ፈጣሪ እዲሠጥህ ዘውትር እመኝልሃለሁ ሠላምህ ይብዛ።
How do plagioclase crystals grow so large in the basaltic extrusive rock shown in video? Why only plagioclase? How long would the cooling process continue before the minerals froze at this size? Thanks.
I’m glad someone else caught that! I had to look up how PORPHYRIES (porphyry, porphyritic rock) happen to be able to wrap my head around this! It turns out that not all magmas are created equal.
Great questions. So, magma compositions vary considerably from silica rich (felsic) to silica poor (mafic). Depending on the initial magma composition (which is also tied somewhat to the temperature of the magma), the mineral with the highest melting point temperature will crystallize first. Surrounded by melt, these minerals have space to form large, well defined crystals. If conditions change (increased gas content, buoyancy, removal of overlying pressure) such that the magma rapidly ascends and erupts, the remaining material (melt), crystallizes quickly around the large crystals to make the porphyritic texture. I'll cover this more when I cover igneous rocks but hopefully that helps for now.
@@shawnwillsey Thanks for the response. Thus, aligned with Bowen's Reaction Series, this would be calcium rich plagioclase.
You are the best for explaining.
I saw some of this along the lake shore, had no idea what it was until now.
Thanks for an excellent and clear discussion
Glad it was helpful!
extremely helpful! Thank you Thank you!
I kept hoping that you would discuss some different greywackes.
Well that was uncanny... I'm trying to identify a crystal formation and I think you just flipped by it at exactly 1:38 omg the name 😂😂😂❤
I'm impressed ❤
Good intro, thanks!
it is not recommended to eat the canned corn if you found feldspar or any other foreign particles in it. The presence of such foreign substances indicates a potential quality or safety issue with the product. It's better to err on the side of caution and avoid consuming it. As mentioned earlier, you should contact the manufacturer and follow their instructions regarding the inciden
Thank you.
VERY helpful!! Thank you.
Yes, thumbs up for the triangle of the Na-K-Ca because it is a reminder that it is all a gradation--kind of like people in real life, everyone is a little bit of everything, just the amount. And I am SO happy to finally see a chunk of Feldspar. (How can you live 64 years and never see one??). Are these chunks common to find, or are feldspars largely just found as part of another rock? Thank you!
Thanks for watching. Feldspars are very common in igneous and metamorphic rocks but are typically smaller sized crystals. Finding large pure chunks is less common but possible.
The lovely rock at 17:55 looks like Japanese art.
Just Great! Thank you!
Just starting this video... and can I say it is a bit weird that the same minerals we need to eat - potassium, iron, calcium etc - are found in rocks??
hmmm... I am thinking now that MAYBE my purple rocks might be a type of granite. they sort of look like that reddish rock you have there from the grand canyon. and I see quartz in them too or at least in one of them. very fine grained too. very sparkly. one side of one rock seems to have almost invisible banding, or those striation? but mine are definitely purple. like a dark color.
and one of my other mystery rocks is definitely granite as it has the black spots on it.
on the previous video (quartz) you showed a rock that had a band of quartz going through it. well I have one of those! It must be why I had picked it up. because it looked different.
also have two tiny pieces of some type of purple quartz crystals I had found on a beach here. see through kind.
I didn't know that magma chambers COULD dry up! and they turn into granite??! Boy, I sure hope that huge magma chamber under Idaho that goes to Yellowstone dries up!! then people wouldn't have to worry about it going BOOM. Mary Greeley is always talking about it rumbling and how ryolite is explosive. she makes it sound like its going to blow any moment and shows seismographs. I learned not to watch her. but I do watch Dutchsinse. did you know he can predict earthquakes? he is right most of the time too.
its kind of strange a rock sitting on your table (or maybe the table itself if its granite) was actually a big pool of magma! how weird!!
Thanks!
It seems that as soon as you learn something you have more questions. I learned that I have a chunk of K-spar about 2 inches by 1.5 inches and very pristine with many planes and translucent. Now I have to wonder how this specimen came to be where I found it. It was found on eroded hillside in east central Indiana and was about 30 feet from an outcrop of Limestone bedrock. It must have been moved a long distance from it's formation but it is large with many corners and flats intact. I never had much interest in geology until I started to figure out how the specimens I have found got to where I found them. Most of the interesting rocks I find seem to have been moved by glacier but from where? I feel sorry for Shawn because most of what he finds out west is right where it formed and far too easy to figure out.I have to wonder 'did this come from the bottom of lake Huron or is it a locally formed metamorphic'?
Some of those rocks are so beautiful that I seriously would wear them on a chain around my neck. 😂
THANK YOU VERY HLPFULL
Thanks 🙏🏼
Thanks for your kindness!
I wonder if the crystals form after the igneous rocks erupted. It seems the crystals would take a while to grow.
Larger crystals form when magma is underground, prior to eruption. Slow cooling allows for more elements to migrate, bond with other elements, and begin to form crystals that get larger as more elements are attracted and bond to the crystal lattice.
What I can't understand is: microcline is stable under 400 degC. So, how do we get something like Sanadine at room temperature?
Subbed, thank you
Welcome aboard!
Nice 👌
Looks like Mojave desert rock. Monzonite!
What does the word plagioclase actually mean? I looked it up in many a place, and I'm still none the wiser.
It seems to relate to the way feldspar breaks apart, but don't all feldspars have planes at 90°, not just those that are plagioclase?
Awesome
Please show streaky gneiss
How do I know if I found a safire or emerald if actual color is concealed by outer shell of hardness scale of 9 rock
Is the orientation of the striations in relation to the cleavage planes, a specific angle?
Great question and my first answer is "I don't know". I'll do some digging on this. Thanks.
How do you differentiate quartz and feldspars? They are both primarily light in colour... is it just from the cleavages?
Cleavage planes or overall crystal shape is a good first indicator.
Where do i get the book?
Order signed copies here: shawn-willsey.square.site/
Or if not in US, order via Amazon.
The last one with the Plagioclase algins look kind of like migmitite.
Good eye! The gneiss to migmatite back to igneous rock series is a spectrum so it sometimes gets tricky where to classify those in-between kind of rocks. To me, the last rock is a true gneiss. Migmatites form when partial melting occurs so you start to get some igneous bands (granite) amongst the darker metamorphic rocks. Here, the light material still looks like felsic minerals like K-spar but no igneous textures. Just my $0.02.
What camera did you use?
iphone 12 mini.
❤
👍
💙💛
👍👍😊
❤🎉
“Sexy k spar”
Thanks so much for the mineral series!” Flesh-colored” is not necessarily appropriate anymore.. especially for those of us who aren’t “peachy” colored…
Many thanks. USA Jeff Baran 🇺🇸 FOREVER
Shawn do you have a email address?
shawnwillsey@gmail.com
Thanks!