This video demonstrates experiments that you can do with a polariscope and the oriented muscovite mica sheet from Snellius Minerals LLC. We review some of the properties of muscovite mica and examine a simplified structure model for muscovite mica. We then demonstrate how the perfect cleavage of muscovite can be used to locate the plane of the a- and b- crystallographic axes of muscovite and how a percussion figure can provide additional crystallographic information. We discuss the optical indicatrix for muscovite. We then explore the optical properties of our oriented muscovite mica sheet including the generation of an “almost” BXA interference figure. This interference figure can help us to fully orient the muscovite mica sheet crystallographically. There was an earlier version of this video that had an error, this is the corrected version!
