Rock Identification with Willsey: Foliated Metamorphic Rocks - Slate, Phyllite, Schist, and Gneiss

Join geology professor Shawn Willsey as he explores these foliated metamorphic rocks: slate, phyllite, schist, and gneiss. Learn the tips and tricks to identify these common rocks.
Link to PDF of my notes: drive.google.com/drive/u/0/fo...
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drive.google.com/drive/u/0/fo...

[@WayneTheSeine]

Great presentation. Now, if I were still young enough to remember it all. The rock with the garnet in it is stunning. I would freak if I found that.

[@Raptorman0909]

One must be careful talking when about a Gneiss Schist -- especially after a couple cups of coffee... I'm really loving these videos and I appreciate the opportunity you provide to learn things I would struggle to learn from a book....

[@mawi1172]

❤❤❤❤❤❤. Your channel is very gneiss. 😂🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[@mizzougrad001]

Top tier dad joke my friend

[@shawnwillsey]

It's tuff to not be too full of schist.

[@Panicagq2]

lol My wife got me a T-shirt that says "Schist happens...metamorphically speaking."

[@dancarlton7973]

I had a high school science teacher who once said "phyllite schist" but it sounded like he used profanity.

Thanks for the morning-class, along with my coffee! 😀 Gneiss ! In Swedish - Gnejs!

[@dixonbuttes6564]

Your videos are like a college class on KZbin … thank you for making them!

[@shawnwillsey]

Thanks for the kind donation. Glad you enjoyed learning.

[@scotte-p7715]

Thanks for your series. Been almost 40 since I got my undergraduate geology degree. Brings back old memories.

[@broadcastmyballs]

That garnet specimen is beautiful!!!😲

[@shawnwillsey]

It really is!

[@Geologynut37]

Thank you so much Shawn! You mentioned Phyllite during your Metamorphic lecture. It helps me understand how rocks such is Anthophyllite forms (a form of Asbestos). I live in Virginia and just east of the Blue Ridge Mountains, you can find many asbestos rocks. When it comes to Anthophyllite it is formed in the same way (generally speaking) as Phyllite. But the parent rock was Ultramafic Basalt with dolomistic shale that is high in Magnesium. It is incredible how many different Phyllites there are based on different minerals that were Metamorphosed. You put the pieces together to understand its formation.

[@TinasTVx]

Really enjoying this series on rocks - I want to go gold panning in the Yukon on vacation maybe I will recognize more rocks because of this.

[@grandparocky]

Thanks for the timing of this install of your series. I just picked up some banded quartzite this week and this helped identify it perfectly.

[@mizzougrad001]

Cool that you upload the notes.

[@Riovientoselva]

Muchas gracias por tu tiempo. Tus videos son siempre informativos and gneiss 😅. Un abrazo !

[@shawnwillsey]

De nada. Gracias por ver.

[@darrellid]

When too much heat and pressure build up, you eventually have to take a Gneiss, big Schist.

[@muzikhed]

I have a few examples in my collection of which I was not certain as to what rock type they may be and now I can happily be sure they are Phylite, Schist and a wavey banded Gneis. These classroom videos have all been quality learning experiences. Thanks heaps. Btw, that Schist with that enormous Garnet is awesome. I have some similar examples though the Garnets are tiny however they are still indicative of high temperatures.

[@Danika_Nadzan]

Another great learning opportunity, thanks! Seeing the rock samples as you describe them makes it so much easier to grasp, and the diagram of where they form helps it makes sense. By the looks of my small rock collection from my travels, I have a preference for gneiss. It's "nice" to know what they are! BTW, that twin garnet porphyroblast was beautiful!

[@sdmike1141]

Thanks! Possibly the BEST…of the rock lab series…until the next one. 🤣. Thanks!

[@shawnwillsey]

Hey thanks so much for your kind words and donation. These have been fun and relatively easy to do.

[@gerritroeterdink]

Gneiss video. Greetings this time from Moscow Idaho (normally from the Netherlands, I'm on holiday in the US and meet some geologist like Nick Zentner and Jerome Lesemann)

[@Rachel.4644]

It feels great to be back in the classroom, Shawn! 😄 I really learn from these rock ID sessions. Thank you so much!

[@shawnwillsey]

You are so welcome!

[@HoboMinerals]

I love the examples with the explanations! Thank you so much

[@davidk7324]

So much comes together as I view these--thanks!

[@patrickkillilea5225]

The Shist with the Garnet is very cool.

[@LordLotman]

I just got into your channel a few weeks ago and had this vid casted on my TV (I usually watch on my phone) and my wife literally said “Why the F are you watching rocks?!” It’s a shame that some people choose to ignore our amazing planet’s history including my wife! Lol When I was at San Diego State I had to take a minor and I took geology (Comm major). Bc classes were so impacted I ended up in a few masters geology classes and absolutely loved it. I’m in sales now, but man, I wish I could somehow have a sales career and work in ur field! Keep up the great content!

[@shawnwillsey]

Thanks for the kind words. Yeah, my wife doesn't get it either but she supports it and is probably impressed I made geology and rocks a viable career. Thanks for watching and learning with me.

[@Anne5440_]

In my family, it's the females that are into rocks. Dad would look at the coffee cans full of pebbles mom who bring home from agate beach in Washington and just shake his head. He didn't seem to realize I had my own sack of those pebbles. He also didn't know that I had hidden when we moved from VA a 10 by 6 inch Rock full of fossils. I snuck that home from girl scout camp along the Potomac River. I still have it, too. I've continued to bring rocks home all my life. I have a piece of mt Stuart granite in my medicine bundle. My middle daughter has taken after mom and I. I told her about your id series, and she wants me to teach her, lol. I've really enjoyed this series.

[@Rachel.4644]

​@Anne5440 so true! Funny how we remember just where we found our special ones. I joke about all the rocks I've collected sinking our property. 😂

[@marklang5169]

Excellent thank you!

[@user-bl1ex6kf2n]

I am from India's top renowned Banaras hindu university as I am backbenchers, last time of my exam it really helps me to identifying rock

[@andreasseyffer]

Very clearly explained, could we have a succession of rocks in the same area?

[@Quarterborefan]

Thanks. Great work as always

[@nitawynn9538]

My birthstone is garnet. I can’t believe the size of your sample. Thanks.

[@loompy1440]

I felt like a total piece of schist today, but this video distracted me and now I’m feeling quite gneiss. (I’m from Idaho too btw)

[@Rincypoopoo]

Beyond helpful. looking forward to walking the river bed (Guadalfeo) and looking for Phyllite, Shist and Gneiss. Really great to go a little deeper into my fascinating local geology. We have shist that is full of Garnets, but they are all tiny, damnit...

[@LanceHall]

I simply can't find a good reference site with good photos and videos for mineral and rock identification. That's why I'm here. Great video series. Google Images today just links to low res photos on Twitter or Reddit.

[@whycivilequalsinsane]

Granite can form schists and gneiss as well

[@whycivilequalsinsane]

I realized later that the progression of slates to gneiss is explain for clarity of concept. Ive seen it being taught a couple times the same way, I learned through seeing granite schist and gneiss so its always coconfusing.

[@kaboom4679]

And I'm between is migmatite , which resembles a lava lamp frozen in time . This is literally the birthplace of continental crust , as the lighter felsic minerals are segregating from the darker magic minerals , and , rising to form batholiths . And yes , granite can exhibit flow banding , and , be metamorphosed as well . Mother nature has quite a messy lab , and will recycle all things in due course .

[@WonNso]

Wow interesting I have learnt a lot

[@davidpetersen1]

AWesome.. super helpful

[@caynaanshecabdalemohamed500]

Thank you

[@JP-el6dm]

Thanks!

[@jackbelk8527]

Maybe a field trip to Middle Mountain to the Oakley Stone quarries?

[@shawnwillsey]

This might work: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Y4iVkJKVgLGHiqM

[@skyepilotte11]

Than you...

[@donnacsuti4980]

The foliated metamorphic rocks with striped layers I've seen in the Sierra Nevada above the elevation of granite.

[@aboahmedalzahrani8785]

I would like to thank you for the explanation and education, as I have benefited a lot from you. I hope that you will provide a translation in Arabic, because we are your students from Saudi Arabia.

[@user-yb1uu8ue4y]

Hi Shawn, I enjoy your ID series. Can you explain how the banding in a foliate rock occurs, when starting from a piece of ordinary granite and then undergoing metamorphic heating and pressure. Do the minerals melt and sink to a certain point where they all have similar densities, or is there a chemical attraction which leaves them all in individual layers? It seems as if layers of different thicknesses should not be possible without some other reason?

[@mosiah3197]

Foliated derives from the latin word for leaf: folium. Never once have I heard a geologist associate foliated with leaf-like.

[@cosimocarroccia4566]

Molto belle queste pietre

[@briane173]

"That's a nice gneiss you got there...." 'Yeah I took a gneiss schist just the other day in fact....'

[@alabamaraptor8610]

thats a nice fire extinguisher in the corner

[@destob9586]

my parking lot at work is lined in gneiss That are growing purple crystals on the exposed side of the rock I thought it was pretty cool 😎

[@shawnwillsey]

Probably garnet crystals. Fun.

[@destob9586]

Is it a metamorphic rock creating a igneous rock?

[@jackprier7727]

The ones with those cool leaf-fossils in em?

[@7inrain]

Am I mistaken or is the third piece of Gneiss (at @18:05) also a bit of an Augengneiss?

[@johncooper4637]

Shawn, the link to your notes does not work. I was able to go back to a previous video and get the current PDF.

[@shawnwillsey]

It's fixed now. Thanks for letting me know.

[@lauram9478]

❤

[@tanyanoel2203]

How may I get a copy of the lesson sheets you're presenting?

[@shawnwillsey]

Look under video description for link.

[@guiart4728]

Excellent! I have examples of all I found in Washington state that are from glacial deposits on Puget Sound. Helps to understand that the bands sometimes come from the temperature and pressure and not bedding.

[@3xHermes]

👍

[@Barley150]

How hot and how high pressures?

[@pdledesma]

How do i discern foliated from sedimentary bedding?

[@shawnwillsey]

Foliation is the alignment of minerals and will also occur in crystalline rocks as opposed to bedding which is in sedimentary rocks made of grains or organic material.

[@cosimocarroccia4566]

Molto belle queste cosa cifanno?

[@kendixnobel9583]

Please what is Halo in geology

[@heezyyyy]

Gniess one

[@shawnwillsey]

You can support my videos by clicking on the "Thanks" button just above (right of "Download" button) or by going here: www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=EWUSLG3GBS5W8 I appreciate your support, comments, and encouragement as we learn together.

[@stevewhalen6973]

Thanks!

[@traycekidd8221]

Thanks!

[@scotte-p7715]

Thanks!

[@shawnwillsey]

Much appreciated. Thank you for your support.

[@stevewhalen6973]

Thanks!

[@shawnwillsey]

You bet!

[@brookgardner2302]

Thanks!

[@shawnwillsey]

Thank you! Appreciate the support.

[@patricialingenfelter1117]

Thanks!

[@shawnwillsey]

Much appreciated. Glad you found this helpful.