Garnet Envy

While reading a paper* today which combines experimental petrology results with information obtained from natural rocks, I noticed a description of the whiteschists located in Dora-Maira massif of the Western Alps, which says that they “They display spectacular up to football-size, pinkish garnets embedded in a matrix of kyanite, quartz and phengite”. For those of you who remember my post showing the outcrop of Tasmanian whiteschist and how very small the outcrop is, you will see why I now have garnet envy. No way could my tiny little outcrop create foot-ball sized garnets! The largest one I found in my samples was only a couple of millimeters wide, though, like theirs, they are "pinkish". I wish that the article had included photos, I’d like to see those garnets…

*Hermann, J., 2003. Experimental evidence for diamond-facies metamorphism in the Dora-Maira massif. Lithos, 70(3-4), 163-182.