Garnet Schist #1

There was a penetration of the light into solid substance so that I seemed to see into things, deep in....
John Steinbeck was not thinking of... more

by - MicROCKScopica -

Title

Garnet Schist #1

Artist

- MicROCKScopica -

Medium

Photograph - Polarized Light Photomicrograph

Description

"There was a penetration of the light into solid substance so that I seemed to see into things, deep in...".
John Steinbeck was not thinking of rocks when he wrote this sentence in "Travels with Charley - In search of America". However, his feeling exactly reflects what people should think when looking at rock photomicrographs such as in this reportage on rocks from the Italian Alps.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Garnet schista are among the most common metamorphic rocks. Here the main of these rocks features can be observed: large crystals of garnet (the purple lower left zone) and a tightly folded matrix around them.
More info at www.microckscopica.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
All images are transmitted, polarized light photomicrographs of 30-micron-thick rock slices (geological "thin sections"), with width of view ranging from 1 to 5 mm. Images were taken with a Canon EOS 550D camera mounted on the trinocular head of a Zeiss Axioscop 40 Pol microscope.

Rock cut, sliced and thinned down to a regular thin section (30-micron thickness)
Technique: Photomicrograph under polarized light, crossed polars plus red tint plate.

Uploaded

January 29th, 2014