Biotite Can Connect You to Healing Energies
Minerologists do not live peacefully. There was a mineral biotite, named so in the middle of the XIX century in honor of the French naturalist Jean-Baptiste Biot, who studied, among other things, the polarization properties of mica.
The mineral biotite was related to micas of complex composition. And now, two hundred years of quiet biotite life have not passed, just as the revolution broke out. Mineralogists were consulted, and deprived a number of micas of high status. From now on, biotite is not a mineral at all, but simply a solid solution of a considerable list of substances.
Geologists, however, are allowed to call a biotite group of mica that does not contain lithium – but only in the field.
Biotite in nature
From the chemical point of view, biotite is alumina silicate of potassium, magnesium and iron, combined with fluorine and a hydroxyl group. The color of biotite, depending on the presence and concentration of impurities, can be yellowish, and dark green, and red-brown, and generally almost black. Glitter is glass, with weathering – golden, metallic.
Biotite crystals often have the appearance of plates – which is characteristic of micas. Layers are easily separated from each other. Separate sheets of crystals are elastic, strong, and elastic. Sometimes flat growths of biotite reach impressive – a few square meters – in size.
Biotites are widely distributed and are part of many metamorphic rocks. Particularly beautiful are the leaves of biotite, many glittering in the thickness of the granite. Deposits of biotite are rich in valuable minerals – quartz, muscovite, feldspars, and garnets. However, biotite itself is not very actively used by man…
Biotite application
Biotite is unstable to weathering. It quickly erodes, as a result of which mica plates lose flexibility and strength, visually “bronze”, turn yellow, crumble. Therefore, the scope of economic use of biotite is limited.
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Crushed weathered biotite is added to the paint and polymer coatings to create a spectacular golden shine. Cement mortar with a good addition of mica from time to time is included in the architectural fashion as a lining material.
Insulating tape made of mica – winding of cable cores – can also be made using biotite. Sometimes the original heat resistance of biotite finds its application. For collectors of mineralogical samples, biotite is valuable. A scattering of the smallest biotite plates in the feldspar creates aventurine. Exceptionally rare for emeralds, the effect of asterism – a six-beam star – occurs when the thinnest laminae of biotite grow into a crystal. However, the Tanzanian emeralds found near Lake Manyara, biotite prevented the glory. Excessive mica ingrownions deprived Manyara’s emeralds of the possibility of cutting.
Biotite as a geological clock
The variability of the composition of biotite, its sensitivity to changes in external conditions, as well as the “hospitable attitude” to elemental and mineral impurities, are highly appreciated by scientists. Chemical analysis of biotite is like a photograph of the time of formation of a mineral. Analytical materials of biotite for a knowledgeable person – a detailed and accurate account of the processes that took place in the distant past.