Human son Sean, dog son Chip, and I enjoyed the first MAGMA field trip to the Kyanite Paradise Mine in Prince Edward County, VA.  Big thanks to the landowner Jessica Callan!  In the photos:

Landowners caught us in the act! Luckily, we had their permission and paid for the privilege. — with Sean Ford in Prospect, Virginia.

Chip the rock hound lends an assist.

Bits of blue kyanite were everywhere. Finding it in abundance was the trick.

Chip provides his advice for the next step.

This little kyanite blade was so pretty, I left it in place with its moss buddies.

Chip in his natural environment.

Little waterfall.

Pretty sand from creek.  A few weeks later, members of an area prospectors club panned out a few flakes of gold.

Cool, Tim. Thanks for the report!
Looks like there's kyanite everywhere!

There is indeed kyanite everywhere at the site.  On current geology maps, the rock type is "interlayered mafic and felsic metavolcanic rocks - amphibolite, hornblende-biotite gneiss and schist" -- same as the nearby Scufflin' Acres. The current maps designate the formations at Willis Mountain and Baker Mountain as "Arvonia Formation - kyanite quartzite and schist".  The Kyanite Paradise site is roughly on the line between these two commercial kyanite mines (Willis active and Baker reclaimed as a wildlife area).

However, the map in Bulletin 38, Kyanite in Virginia, 1932, seems to show Kyanite Paradise property split between two rock types, the "oligoclase-biotite schist of high rank metamorphism, ws" of the Wissahickon formation, and "Columbia granite injection in hornblende gneiss, ch".  The older map seems to track with the east-west difference in rocks found on the property: quartz seams apparent on the western "ch" half, and kyanite found on the western "ws" half.  Scufflin Acres in the old map seems to be "ch".  The old map designates Willis and Baker mountains as "kyanite quartzite, ky" as part of the Wissahickon formation.

Land forms on the quartz seams part of the property are rather interesting and might indicate unmapped faults.  Some rather abrupt dropoffs are out of character with the rest of the rolling topography, much like the dropoff at Scufflin Acres.

Just for comparison, here is a photo identified as Willis Mountain kyanite on matrix. Note the sandstone nature of the matrix versus the schist/gneiss of Kyanite Paradise.

One of my better clusters after muriatic acid soak, scraping matrix, and neutralizing soak. For whatever reason the process left one side mostly stained. I like it that way because it sort of shows both before and after. Collected from Jessica Callan's Kyanite Paradise property, a new fee site, near Prospect, VA.