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I have been looking at some thin sections of rock under the microscope, and took a couple of pictures that I think look pretty neat. They aren't particularly interesting geologically (although the second one does show a microscopic fold (crenulation)) but they look nice. I might post some more interesting stuff later if I can find it.





-Mr Flibble

Whhen God made this... he must have been on Acid... Seriously though nature is facanting.. where is this sample from on this grand earth of ours

Redleader34 wrote:Whhen God made this... he must have been on Acid... Seriously though nature is facanting.. where is this sample from on this grand earth of ours

They are from the Strangways Metamorphic Complex in central Australia.

-Mr Flibble

Those would be very cool if they could be used as stained glass windows, yes I know they're microscopic, but still.

Looks like metamorphosed granite.

That is utterly gorgeous!

Inanimate objects: making better abstract art than humans do for 14 billion years.

Before people get carried away, those pictures were taken with a polarizing lens on the microscope. Sadly, rock samples don't look that cool on their own.

Fibble, does your university have microscope-cameras, or is that a computer-microscope interface? When I did my undergrad I wasn't allowed to use that kind of stuff.

Oh noes! A polarizing lens!

I now hate rocks and cannot appreciate any of the initial beauty of the above images .

Really, how he ended up at this final result is not particularly significant (besides, we already knew it was highly magnified.) We're just interested in the patterns and designs that can be found --even with a little technical help-- through Gaia's natural brilliance .

CaptainChewbacca wrote:Before people get carried away, those pictures were taken with a polarizing lens on the microscope. Sadly, rock samples don't look that cool on their own.

Fibble, does your university have microscope-cameras, or is that a computer-microscope interface? When I did my undergrad I wasn't allowed to use that kind of stuff.

Our university does have a microscope camera, and it has computer microscope interfaces, however these pictures weren't taken using either. I took them by holding my camera to the lens our standard undergrad microscopes, a lot didn't work out, for obvious reasons, and it is difficult to calculate the actual scale, thanks to the zoom on the camera, but I thought it looked cool. I have some more which are done under normal light, which don't look anywhere near as pretty but are interesting. I also have some polished section images.

Next semester though I start honours, so I should have access to the better tools in the university, so I can get some nicer pics.

-Mr Flibble

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Looks like metamorphosed granite.

Actually they are meta-pelites, which is basically a metamorphosed shale, and I should point out they are two different samples but from the same area.

-Mr Flibble

Here are some more photos:

Crenulations:



Polished Section (from Olympic Dam in northern South Australia):



Polished Section (from Olympic Dam in northern South Australia):



Thin section normal light:



Same section under polarisers:



Thin section normal light:



Same section under polarisers:



Same section when the gypsum plate is in (yes I know it is not supposed to be used for that, but after spending hours staring down a microscope I get a little bored/crazy sometimes):



-Mr Flibble