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Bevel Tip and Magnification

whoa... wait a minute.... those are the red spots we've been talking about? They're huge. No disrespect intended, but not for a minute would I think those were garnets. I assumed we were talking about something else.

I've been operating under the assumption that the garnets were far too small to see with a naked eye. I can observe those type of spots in everyone of my stones.... with my naked eye.

What are they... 5 microns and up? That would make them about 1/40th of a millimeter? Could I even see that? The garnets, I mean.
 
wdwrx said:
whoa... wait a minute.... those are the red spots we've been talking about? They're huge. No disrespect intended, but not for a minute would I think those were garnets. I assumed we were talking about something else.
Click to expand...
Here's the picture that was contributed earlier in this thread, and that I've addressing in my posts:
5283195030_c006f0458a.jpg


I have no doubt these are the same spots as the ones I have examined in the video I made today.

wdwrx said:
I've been operating under the assumption that the garnets were far too small to see with a naked eye. I can observe those type of spots in everyone of my stones.... with my naked eye.
What are they... 5 microns and up? That would make them about 1/40th of a millimeter? Could I even see that? The garnets, I mean.
Click to expand...
I believe the actual garnets are indeed smaller than what we can see with the naked eye. They're reported to be in between 10 and 20 micron, by Ardennes website, and they base themselves upon research done at the University of Liege, Belgium. Other sources state even smaller garnet diameters. Note that spessartine garnets do exist in much larger sizes, but at a Hardness of 7 on the Mohs scale, I expect that they'd cause serious havoc at the edge of a razor, if they were too large.

I've examined slurry under the scope before, both in wet and dry state, and I've never found any particles that showed up large enough under my stereoscope, to be clearly discernible.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
I hope my clean up attempts are to all of the associates liking?
I have moved the dross over to the Miscellaneous section

Ralfson
 
It looks good Ralfson.

I haven't seen the split off part in the Miscellaneous section yet, but I wonder if it contains anything that's worthy a discussion.

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Bart said:
but I wonder if it contains anything that's worthy a discussion.

Kind regards,
Bart.
Click to expand...

Not really my friend, btw did Denny get in touch? he was a little shocked at Steves behaviour, and wanted to give you his support and respects

Best wishes
Ralfson
 
Well, as I'm sure you realized Bart, I didn't have much luck in my hunt for a garnet.:thumbdown:
The best I accomplished was to see a very tiny pinprick of reflected light off some dried slurry in which I was able to isolate single particles. Not that I'd know a garnet if it up and bit me on the ass.

I was able to reproduce the same results you showed in the video you posted on one of the white spots in my BBW. It is obviously a very soft material. I was able to differentiate the feeling through the needle as it had a slightly different feel while in contact with the surounding stone.

This reminds me, though; some time ago there was mention of having coticule slurry analyzed via SEM... whatever came of that?
 
wdwrx said:
This reminds me, though; some time ago there was mention of having coticule slurry analyzed via SEM... whatever came of that?
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That's still a long shot. A volunteer for operating the SEM has been found, and we have raised enough funds to pay for the lab hours. But there are many things to examine, much more than we have opportunity for. We're still working out a framework for the experiment, but activity in the research department is rather slow at the moment. We're going to reorganize, in favor of focusing our efforts better. We also hope to reinforce ranks of the research team with a few new names. Your name is on my short list.:)

Kind regards,
Bart.
 
Yikes.... I'm not going to have to write reports am I?:lol: :lol: :lol:
Kidding!:D Bring it on!

I'm looking forward to some new challenges.

tat2Ralfy said:
OMG!

I didn't realise things were that bad

Bwhahahaha
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watch out Ralfy, I've been takin' lessons from Dennis!
 
Bart said:
wdwrx said:
This reminds me, though; some time ago there was mention of having coticule slurry analyzed via SEM... whatever came of that?
Click to expand...
That's still a long shot. A volunteer for operating the SEM has been found, and we have raised enough funds to pay for the lab hours. But there are many things to examine, much more than we have opportunity for. We're still working out a framework for the experiment, but activity in the research department is rather slow at the moment. We're going to reorganize, in favor of focusing our efforts better. We also hope to reinforce ranks of the research team with a few new names. Your name is on my short list.:)

Kind regards,
Bart.
Click to expand...

I may be of some assistance here :) I'm regularly using a Tecnai G2 TEM/SEM for my nanoparticle research for use in cancer treatments (you wouldn't believe the progress being made here right now! :thumbup: ). I could easily sneak in a slurry sample from my La Nouvelle Vein and report back with the results. It will be TEM at the moment, as I havent used the SEM function yet, but that will arrive soon.

Regards,

James
 
James,

That would be great. Maybe Ralfy and Gary could send you some samples (other strata) to sneak in too at some point. :)

Paul
 
As said James, that would wonderful, email me if I can contribute slurry

Best regards
Ralfson (Dr)
 
James,
That is an amazing offer. Of course we'd like to see images of structures present in a slurry, TEM of SEM, they both seem interesting options for examining garnets.
In the case of TEM, you have to enlighten me. I known the principle, but not exactly how the samples are prepared. I can imagine that normal slurry is way to dense to discern individual particles. Would it be feasible to use some kind of thining strategy as is done with bacterial cultures. The basic idea is to have a sample that's diluted enough to show the particles separatedly.

tat2Ralfy said:
As said James, that would wonderful, email me if I can contribute slurry
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Ralfon, if you require "magazines" to produce the slurry, I hear they still sell those in Germany. :D :D
 
Bart said:
James,
That is an amazing offer. Of course we'd like to see images of structures present in a slurry, TEM of SEM, they both seem interesting options for examining garnets.
In the case of TEM, you have to enlighten me. I known the principle, but not exactly how the samples are prepared. I can imagine that normal slurry is way to dense to discern individual particles. Would it be feasible to use some kind of thining strategy as is done with bacterial cultures. The basic idea is to have a sample that's diluted enough to show the particles separatedly.
Click to expand...

It shouldnt be a problem with the dilution. I've never used bacterial cultures and don't know those processes, but im sure it wont be different from the stuff Im looking at atm, just a little larger.

Ill use a standardized method - e.g place 5ml water onto the stone, 5 strokes of slurry stone (thinking of using the slate backing on my slurry to for this, to ensure only the coticule garnets are present from the hone, not the slurry stone), collect all water/slurry from the hone. Place a 5ul (microlitre) drop on a sample grid. Also dilute 2 times (double the amount of water) and take another 5ul sample. Its simply trial and error :rolleyes:

Ralph, Gary, I shall drop you both an email once I've gotten good results with my own rock - should be in about 2 weeks.

By about march, I will be able to use EDX - energy dispersive x-ray analysis. This uses Xrays to determine the chemical composition of whatever you put in the TEM. It also shows where in the sample each element is. This works for simple gold core silver shell nanoparticles, but I'm not sure if it will work as well for spessartine garnets as im guessing the distribution of elements is in some sort of complex lattice. I may be able to give this a go once I'm fast and good at it (it can take a long time - costing a lot of money).

I know this thread is starting to go off topic, but I wasn't sure where to respond to!
 
towliff said:
By about march, I will be able to use EDX - energy dispersive x-ray analysis. This uses Xrays to determine the chemical composition of whatever you put in the TEM. It also shows where in the sample each element is. This works for simple gold core silver shell nanoparticles, but I'm not sure if it will work as well for spessartine garnets as im guessing the distribution of elements is in some sort of complex lattice. I may be able to give this a go once I'm fast and good at it (it can take a long time - costing a lot of money.
Click to expand...
It should work just fine for garnets (or whatever...), but you’ll never get distribution of elements anywhere near the lattice level (if that’s what you meant). Still, spatial resolution for bulk (point) analysis at the beam by TEM-EDX should very good under ideal conditions. X-ray mapping/imaging over a larger area might be informative as well.
 
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