Home▸Physics & Mechanics▸Mica Basal Cleavage — Interlayer Peeling (2D)

Mica Basal Cleavage — Interlayer Peeling (2D)

A 2D cross-section of a mica crystal: weak interlayer bonds hold TOT sheets together while strong Si-O bonds fuse each sheet internally. Drive a wedge into an interlayer gap and peel sheets down to nanometer thinness, or try cutting across a sheet to see why that fails.

Physics & Mechanics2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted🌍 Earth ⇄ 3D version

Details

CategoryPhysics & Mechanics

RenderingCanvas 2D

DifficultyModerate

Target FPS60

ControlsMineral selector switches muscovite/biotite/phlogopite interlayer bond strength; Splitting-force and Wedge-sharpness sliders combine into the stress delivered to the selected target; Cleave/Shear mode buttons switch what a canvas click selects; click a gap between sheets in Cleave mode to peel a flake, or click inside a sheet in Shear mode to attempt an in-plane cut; Reset Crystal restacks the sample.

Mica SeparationBasal CleavageInterlayer BondingVan der Waals ForcesMineral ProcessingNanosheet Exfoliation

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A cross-section of a mica crystal shows why the mineral has perfect basal cleavage: weak interlayer bonds let a wedge split off paper-thin sheets one at a time, while the strong covalent network inside each sheet resists cutting across it almost entirely.

⚙ Under the hood

A 2D companion to the 3D mica sorter, showing why mica splits at all: a cross-section of stacked TOT sheets held together only by weak interlayer bonds (K+ ions, van der Waals forces) between silicate layers that are themselves fused by strong covalent Si-O bonds. Drive a wedge into a chosen interlayer gap and push the splitting force past the cleavage threshold to peel off sheets down to nanometer thinness — then try forcing a crack straight through a sheet instead and watch it shatter rather than cleave, since in-plane bonding is roughly fifty to eighty times stronger.

Mica SeparationBasal CleavageInterlayer BondingVan der Waals ForcesMineral ProcessingNanosheet Exfoliation

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install