Sometimes schist happens when you aren't expecting it. I was hiking along the Baltimore County side Patapsco river yesterday. I saw outcropping ledge of stone high above the ruins of of the old mill town of Daniels, aka Alberton and Elysville. I climbed up to investigate what I thought might be a nice place of shelter or hibernation for wildlife. As I was getting ready to descend, at the end of the rock I noticed a different smaller stone formation that looked like schist and also looked like it was bleeding. At first I though maybe an animal had been eating berries or a bird had made a deposit on the stone.But closer inspection revealed small red-brown crystals imbedded in the white-gray schist. Where is your rock hammer when you need it? In the trunk of your car two miles away, of course! I wasn't looking for schist or garnets and certainly did not expect to stumble on any. But I did have my cameras. So I captured some slow moving specimens of rock on digital media. My geology guru, Ira, a professional geologist confirmed the garnet schist identification.
My brother Chris, like Old Sparky whispering in my ear suggested: "Quick, buy up the land. We'll mine it, declare bankruptcy....get a bailout and run off with the money! It's the new American capitalism." I'm thinking. It's not the mother load. It's a load of schist. But we could spread stock around like manure. Don't tempt me.
The first photo, above, is of a broken off vein of schist. The piece probably fell long ago, since it is securely planted in the ground and tree is growing next to it. It was likely once a section of a horizonat ledge seen in the third photo.It looks like it's bleeding. The photo below is cropped emlargement focused on one red section.
Below is a close up of an intact horizontal vein of schist showin a few garnet cystals if you look closely.
And finally below is a photo of a small section from the vein above, which I removed. It show a nice garnet gembedded in the schist.
