Xbq · Quartzofeldspathic mica schist

Mica Schist Xbq #001

Ancient beach sand, crushed and reborn.

$3,950

We're quite confident that Colorado spent most of the past 2 billion years on a tropical beach vacation, close to the equator, and close to sea level

Steadily accumulating thick layers of sandstones and limestones, which are not bad rocks; you see the sandstones used everywhere in flat flaky pinkish derivations as metro-Denver landscaping or layered CU-Boulder building facades, but not particularly interesting rock either

But if you bury that boring sandstone deep enough; and crush it hard enough, hot enough...

Dimensions: 14 × 14 × 18 in
Weight: 108 lb
Age: 1,713 ± 30 Ma
Formation: Gold rush / tunnel discard

Sourced nearMeeker Park, COSoutheast of Estes Park

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The rock melts and the minerals can reflow and recombine into the facinating colors and textures we have in this sink

It was however, quite unremarkable and uninteresting to the gold rush miners as they carved the entrance tunnel to their mine south-east of Estes Park. They threw it aside to wait another 150 years for me to find it

I was able to work the interior into flowingly fun curvatures because the quartz and felsic minerals are so nicely distributed, even though all of the visual textures are stunningly chaotic. It's seriously one of the most fun rocks I've kissed with my diamond saws. I'm still not sure if I had more fun cutting it, or looking at it afterwards

Raw piece of quartzofeldspathic mica schist with rust-stained mica seams, with a toy figure for scale

From the shop

Stone & Carving notes

Jagged, angular, and seemingly full of quartz rich minerals with streaky biotite, the exterior of this stone told me that it was going to be a difficult, if not impossible rock to carve

It seemed like a jumble of difficult to cut crystaline structures set at odd angles to each other, likely to crack apart and propagate their fractures deeper into the stone.

Instead, it was the most 'buttery' and wonderful to carve stone I've set diamond saws to.

The structure and matrix was remarkably cohesive, and the stone was so amenable to diamond sawing that I could actually twist my saws in 3d while cutting.

Almost no chiseling was required, as the majority of the waste volume melted away

I left the exterior with two different personalities to try and preserve the nature of this stone, some jagged and knobbly sections, interspersed wth smooth cut faces for contrast

USGS map descriptions of Xb, biotite schist and gneiss, noted as equivalent to units Xbq and Xbk combined, and Xbq, quartzofeldspathic mica schist: mica-poor schist interbedded with quartzofeldspathic metasandstone

Geology

Quartzofeldspathic Mica Schist, Xbq

Metamorphic rocks made from sedimentary parent stock are usually something I pass on.

Many of them are not interesting visually or structurally. The other ones fail under carving, either breaking apart explosively, or full of layers so resistant to diamond cutting as to be unworkable.

The geochemistry of this stone, however, was something else entirely!

I base my classifications on the USGS maps and descriptions of each rock unit, combined with extensive hiking and exploring in the field. So I don't have the real story on exactly what minerals made this stone this way; only the knowledge that it was heavily metamorphosed to the point of entirely reflowing, and that the resulting rock is a pure delight

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Custom sinks carved from the Rockies.

Tell me about your space and which stone caught your eye. Come see it in person at the shop, or let's dream up something unique to match your vision, and I'll go find it in the wild.

Stone Wood & Steel12550 W Colfax Ave #105, Lakewood, CO 80215720 · 357 · 0089 [email protected]

Painted Routt Plutonic sign on a reclaimed-wood wall at the shop, with raw stones piled below