Living As... Labradorite

Given a free choice of what they would like to be for a day, you might expect someone to say a bird or a tank or even Kylie's underwear. But no, Josh Davies wanted to know what it would be like to spend a day as a rock.

I think first, before we delve into what it would be like to live a day as a volcanic rock, it might be worth letting ourselves know what we're getting in to. So... labradorite is named, disappointingly, not after the dog, but the Canadian coastal region. It is one of the main minerals making up the earth’s continental crust (and Mars for that matter) and can survive at temperatures up to 1500^oC.

Okay, so back to the day in question:

Wake up time

Unfortunately, being a mineral, waking up time does not correspond exactly with the sun or alarm clock, whichever is more annoying. What usually spurs this thing into action is some sort of hot spell.

Imagine you are some little mineral laying low in the crust and some hot liquid magma comes along and engulfs you – quite rightly you get a little annoyed. Labradorite marks its annoyance by giving in entirely to the magma and melting.

Morning (around 11am)
The mid morning snack section of the day is when labradorite becomes a little social. After melting, labradorite tends to spread itself around a bit and split up into its different elements.

Midafternoon lull
Most normal people experience a certain amount of post-lunch fatigue; fortunately for labradorite this isn’t the case. As the magma body rises its different elements are called back into action and group together again as the crystal begins to reform (the magma is cooling).

Due to its low density labradorite rises up to the top of the magma chamber, much like a swot at school rising above (intellectually speaking) those more dense pupils below.

Dinner time
Things start to get worse for the poor labradorite crystal at dinner. The magma chamber begins to rise uncontrollably making the mineral feel somewhat queasy. Other minerals start to crystallise around it at this point; even gas bubbles start to form. A feeling of impending doom heightens within the rock...

Bed rock
Around bedtime, our illustrious labradorite explodes out of a volcano. It’s a sorry end for the little mineral but if you are going to play around in magma chambers what more do you expect?

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