Kaolinised Tourmaline Granite - Littlejohns (#16)
Collection:
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Fact sheet

Kaolinised Tourmaline Granite - Littlejohns (#16)

This altered granite comes from Littlejohn's china clay pit, St Austell, Cornwall. China clay is mined in this area by high pressure water hoses and filtering to remove the remaining micas and quartz. Littlejohn's clay pit has been active since the 1800s and continues to supply fine clays suitable for use in paper making.

In thin section the rock contains highly altered plagioclase and orthoclase feldspars that are barely recognisable as they have been transformed to fine-grained clay minerals, mostly kaolinite. Mica is recognisable through the pleochroic haloes, although highly altered. It may have originally crystallised as siderophyllite (biotite), but it is now the Li-rich species, zinnwaldite. Topaz probably crystallised during the same alteration event.  Small grains of tourmaline are also present. They have brown cores (magmatic origin) and are rimmed with blue tourmaline (hydrothermal origin). It is only the quartz that remains unaltered.

Additional images
  • width 7 cm
  • width 2.8 cm
Map
50.375785, -4.849541
Description:
Littlejohns china clay pit, near St Austell, Cornwall
Precision:
Moderate
About this collection

A case study of the St Austell granite complex in Cornwall, England, illustrating the range of rocks associated with a granite intrusion. The earliest part of the complex is a siderophyllite (biotite) granite containing muscovite and tourmaline typical of a SW England granite, with many primary magmatic features.

This early intrusion was followed by the intrusion of an evolved volatile-rich magma which was the driving force behind a series of intense hydrothermal processes as volatiles escaped from this magma and helped to establish an extensive alteration halo (aureole). Boron, fluorine and lithium (as well as water) played major roles in the formation of the second intrusion and in the associated hydrothermal processes. Igneous activity lasted around 18 million years from 282 Ma (siderophyllite granite) to 265 Ma (fluorite granite).

 

Sample details

Collection: St Austell Granite
Type
igneous
Rock-forming mineral
quartz
kaolinite
feldspar
tourmaline
topaz
Category guide  
Category Guide
Title
Refers to any word or phrase that appears in the individual rock names. Names are generally descriptive; they allow users to search for broad terms like ‘granite’ as well as more specific names such as ‘breccia’. However, the adjacent descriptions of the specimens captures a wider range of general words and phrases and is a more powerful search tool.
Description
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Accessory minerals
Minerals that occur in very low abundance in a rock. They are usually not visible with the naked eye and contribute perhapssver, they often dominate the rare elements such as platinum group metals.
Rock-forming minerals
Minerals that make up the bulk of all rock samples and are also the ones used in rock classi?cation.
Timescale
Selecting one or more period, for example 'Jurassic'.
Theme
A term used to group together related samples that are not already gathered into a single Collection. For instance, there is a ‘SW England granites’ theme that includes such rock types as granite, hydrothermal breccia, skarn and vein samples.
Category
A general term used to label a rock sample. It is a useful way of grouping similar samples throughout a collection. Category names are often, but not exclusively, common rock names (e.g. granite, basalt, dolerite, gabbro, greisen, skarn, gneiss, amphibolite, limestone, sandstone).
Owner
The owner of the sample that appears in the collection. For example, NASA owns all the samples that appear in the Moon Rocks collection
We would like to thank the following for the use of this sample: