Today Rebecca and I went shopping to craft centers out in the Brandermill area of western Chesterfield County, VA. Chip tagged along, so I walked him at each stop. Two out of three had good areas. This one was a patch of woods and a tributary of Swift Creek behind the Michael's store.
The photos show four obvious veins of quartz and feldspar rock running through schist bedrock. Look closer and there are older  veins in the schist running crossways. Or maybe that's banding and the schist is gneiss. The eastern water snake was sunning on the flat rock until Chip blundered through the creek, oblivious to the reptile. Just as well. Chip is disappointed that the vein rock in my fingers isn't a kibble treat. The clay borders were more interesting for the sparkly bits. The golden hue of the sparkly bits might indicate pyrite, or maybe some colorful variety of mica.
In the overview photo, follow the four veins across the creek and there is a pile of vein rock on the bank. Soil has slumped over the continuation, if it indeed continues.
It was all leaverite but interesting to see nonetheless. Five or ten miles further west, across the Appomattox River and into Amelia County, the geology changes and there's all sorts of interesting rocks, but not for today.
We drove home, ate lunch and cleared out the sun room so we could take out the carpet and dry it on the patio after yesterday evening's mini-deluge weather front. I'm still sick from cold and allergies, and Rebecca is hurting badly from back pain, so we can only do so much at a time.

Hey, hey, hey - Chip says 'take this muzzle off me and I'll find you better rocks! 

Here's the remnant patch of woods surrounded by civilization. The woods also sheltered a homeless guy's camp. Close to multiple food dumpster diving opportunities!  He wasn't around when we were there but watched us leave as he was returning.

It is cool how vivid the quartz dikes show up in rock.  I'm used to seeing quartz veins in clay.  I suppose this is the geological earlier version.  Too bad it was just plain rock.

One indicator might be staring at me right there in the fourth photo.  In person I didn't notice the patterns -- because of the glare and the fact that I didn't get down real close to inspect much less break off weathered rock.  But the camera saw it:  in photo 4, there seems to be a faint folded foliation and some banding generally running from top to bottom of photo.   Then during or after the folding, the faint d**e running horizontally cut across the foliation.  Still later the obvious dikes, ranging from several inches to less than an inch wide, cut across in a generally vertical direction.  Multiple geologic events don't necessarily indicate worthiness for prospecting, but their presence seems better than more plain and boring rock.

OK, now I have to return with hammer and chisels to confirm:  The Virginia geology map shows the primary rock type here as Petersburg Granite.  The base rock in the photos appears to be the "foliated granite" or the "layered granite gneiss" of the Petersburg Granite, as described at http://www.dmme.virginia.gov/commercedocs/OFR_07_03.pdf