S. W. Woodall property, Talbot County, Georgia, USAi

Regional Level Types
S. W. Woodall property	Property
Talbot County	County
Georgia	State
USA	Country

Kyanite occurs on lot 99, 23d district, Talbot County. The property, owned by S. W. Woodall of Woodland, occupies a small valley, a quarter mile south of Oak Mountain. It lies one and a half miles east of Woodland, which is the nearest shipping point on the Atlanta, Birmingham and Coast Railway. The kyanite-bearing schist crops out a quarter of a mile west of Coleotchee Creek, and from 20 to 60 feet above its level.

Oak Mountain is composed of Hollis quartzite which here strikes N. 60°-85° E. and dips 40° to 60° S. The overlying Manchester formation consists mainly of fine-grained mica schist, in part graphitic, with thin interbeds of garnet-biotite gneiss and quartzite. The schistosity conforms in attitude to the Hollis quartzite, although in places it is contorted and puckered into minute regular crenulations. The kyanite-bearing schist occupies a position about 200 feet above the base of the Manchester formation and is about 30 feet thick. In this zone the schist contains quartz veins, pegmatite stringers and lenses, and thin cherty-quartz layers crowded with small euhedral garnets. The pegmatites, composed mainly of quartz, feldspar, and muscovite, are in general less than 2 inches in width and conform to the schistosity of the enclosing rocks.

Kyanite occurs in the pegmatite, quartz veins, and in the adjoining schist. The crystals possess the typical bladed form with a white to blue color. The surfaces of the crystals are commonly speckled with small flakes of muscovite and graphite. The last-named mineral is present in many of the thin quartz veins that contain no kyanite. Many of the kyanite dornicks that lie about on the ground surface contain open spaces into which prisms of kyanite project, but it is possible that these cavities are secondary and due to the removal of kaolinized feldspar.

The large number of kyanite crystals that occur in the reddish-brown residual soil on this property prompted the owner to cut a series of trenches across the strike of the underlying rocks in order to determine the abundance of the mineral in the schists. The sections thus displayed show that the kyanite is not as abundant as surface indications might lead one to suspect. In a large measure it is restricted to thin lenses of pegmatite and quartz.