We visited the Philip Carter Winery this weekend with family. Baxter and I were pleased to see outcrops of charnockite scattered over the property (located in the middle of the Blue Ridge geologic province).
As any 18-month-old will tell you, charnockite is a pyroxene-bearing granitoid. It’s a distinctive and common rock type in Virginia’s Proterozoic basement complex. Here’s a close-up:
The dark green is pyroxene. The white is plagioclase feldspar. The kid shows signs of interest in rocks.
Speaking of chips off of blocks . . .
This kid is cute and becomes the focus of these few pix rather than the rock.